When Demons Rise
by TurboWolf
Summary: When cultists steal the Book of E.N.D., a new side of everyone's favorite dragonslayer is revealed. How could a demon's release turn the Fairy Tail world on its head? (Pairing Has Been Determined, rating HAS GONE UP 'cuz chapter 7 gets... Dark & Gory. Probably. Genre may change)
1. A Misadventure's Beginning

**A/N: I decided to put the prologue and Chapter one together and run it through Grammarly, so here ya go! I also made some minor edits. Remember, it's still my first Fanfiction, so be gentle :)**

 **Betaread by Ikrani as of 2-26-19 (official announcement comes on chapter 9)**

 **I found a new map of Fiore, and it shows that Hargeon is in the Southeast. Whaddaya know.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail, that right belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lucky bastard. I don't make any sort of money off this, and only own what/who I come up with.**

"This is talking,"

 _This is thinking, and special circumstances_

 _Italics*Italics_ =normal

 **This is when shit's goin' down**

* * *

 **Prologue**

 _X740, Unknown Location_

Heavy pants. Boots meeting stone. Rain upon ramparts. A man in black and purple robes with a stylized "Z" pattern ran down the corridor, three more at his back. The second man carried a book, the reverence with which he did so at odds with the malevolence that seemed to emanate from it.

They all knew their mission: retrieve the book at all costs. They only had a short time before those... _things_ woke up, which would spell disaster for them, and their mission. They shot past three more corridors and banked right to enter the castle's foyer.

Then they heard it: an unearthly howl of indignant anger, followed by a demonic roar.

The fourth man was paralyzed with fear, while it lent those in front of him greater speed. A dark shape with pointed ears appeared in the shadows behind him, and he exploded into a bloodless mess.

The other three managed to run even faster as the shadowed being gave chase through the pitch-black night.

With a bellow of rage, thorns wrapped around the first man.

The second tripped over them as lightning flashed, and the book left his grasp. A stray beam of moonlight parted the clouds and momentarily illuminated the title.

 _'E.N.D.'_

The third man caught it and activated his magic, shooting off over the hills.

"Speedy bastard, I'll ge-"

"No. Let him go, Jackal," said the one responsible for the thorns. "It seems they share our goal for the master."

"Yes, Mard Geer," the pointy-eared Jackal complied.

"This may even assist my own plan," Mard Geer mused as the duo turned back towards the castle.

* * *

 **A Misadventure's Beginning**

 _X784, Fairy Tail Guildhall_

It was a normal day in the Fairy Tail guild. The members were drinking and carrying on, but it was too early for any fight to have broken out yet. The guild's newest member, Lucy, stood before the request board to find a job.

"Let's see here… finding a lost cat, breaking a curse, building a granary, even fighting a volcano demon. I had no idea wizard jobs were so varied," Lucy mused.

"Did you say 'fighting a Volcano Demon'?" asked Natsu, excitedly looking for the flier on the board.

"Oh no, don't you go getting any ideas, mister!" yelled Lucy, activating her scary-mode. "You picked the last job, it's my turn now!"

"Pssh, don't be silly, Luna, Happy picked the last job. It's my turn now, and I say we fight that volcano demon, whatever that is. Besides, you could use the experience," Natsu stated, brushing her off and grabbing the flyer.

"Hey, Mira, I found a cool job!" he called, catching the barmaid's attention.

"I knew you'd find that request sooner or later, Natsu. I already had you down for taking it!" Mira smiled, before bursting into a fit of giggles as a thoroughly vexed Lucy marched over.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Natsu, MY NAME IS LUCY!" she raged. "I absolutely REFUSE to be dragged around by some reckless idiot who doesn't even know my name!"

Alas, Natsu did not hear, as he'd already marched off to pick a fight with a quarter of the guild members present. Currently, he had a black-haired ice wizard, Gray, clinched in a side headlock.

Mirajane stopped her fellow Fairy from giving chase into the bedlam. "Lucy, calm down. The reward will cover your rent for four months, and Natsu's right: you need some fighting experience. There's no one better to get it alongside than Natsu, except maybe Erza-"

"ERZA?!" the guild chorused and, like a switch had been flipped, quickly repaired all the damage they had inflicted to the furniture. Natsu and Gray did their best Happy impressions. Lucy could only stare at them, confusion written across her face, while Mirajane acted like it was perfectly normal.

"What's with them?" Lucy asked, before remembering where she knew that name from. "Wait, do you mean Erza Scarlet, the Queen of the Fairies?"

The fangirl jitters she got looked contagious. "I've read about her in Sorcerer Weekly, and I can't wait to meet her! They say she's Fairy Tail's strongest female mage!" she squealed.

"I wouldn't go that far, but she's pretty strong," Mira stated convincingly. "Anyway, you should go on that quest with Natsu; it'll be good for you. Every good mage is a competent fighter, and experience is the best way to learn."

"Wait, how would you know? You're a barmaid," Lucy skeptically replied, to which Mira suddenly burst into tears.

"You made Mira cry!" Natsu exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger Lucy's way.

"That is so unmanly," Elfman grunted, disgusted at the dismissal of his sister's ability while getting nods of agreement from several other members.

Lucy began to panic under everyone's glares. "No, Mira, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it! You're the best barkeeper ever! You're also a great secretary and model! I'm sure you know lots of things about magic! You give great advice! I promise to go with Natsu on the quest! Please, just stop crying!"

Mirajane's tears dried up in a flash as she smiled a most evil and devilish smile. Lucy then realized what she promised, and slammed her head into the bar.

"I hate myself," Lucy groaned as Natsu seized her arm and ran out of the guild.

"Volcano thing, here I come!" exclaimed the fiery wizard, sprinting towards Lucy's apartment before releasing her and running off to his own home. Left at home, Lucy quickly started packing her suitcase: there was no telling how soon Natsu would return to drag her off to some demon's lair.

* * *

Lucy only had time to pack before Natsu came in through her window, pack on and his red jacket with white trim and markings on the sleeves donned. "Ya ready to go, Lucy?" he inquired.

"As a matter of fact, I am," she declared, before getting dragged outside by the zealous fire mage, her suitcase in tow. The duo soon arrived at the train station

"Where are we going, Lucy?" Happy meowed.

"Yeah, where is this thing we're gonna fight?" Natsu asked.

"You mean to tell me that you took a job without reading it!?" Lucy asked incredulously, only to be answered be a sheepish grin. Sighing, she read it to them, "It says, 'A vile creature has taken up residence in the volcano near Aspen Town and is wreaking havoc on our livelihoods. Please expel it from the premises. Request submitted to Lamia Scale, Fairy Tail, and the Southern Fiore Diocese. Submitter: Tim Carmen, Aspen Town Mayor. Reward: _600,000 jewel!_ " Lucy read, cheering the last part.

"Southern Fiore Diocese. Huh," Natsu mused, "Never heard of that guild."

"That's because it's not a guild. It's the administrative unit of the Zentopian Church that Aspen Town falls under," Lucy elaborated.

"The Adminis-what? Zentopia? What are those?"

"Think of it like the government, except it's the people from the Kardia Cathedral," she simplified.

"Oh, I get it," said Happy. "I always wondered why they didn't keep fish in that big pool in the church."

Deciding to ignore the flying cat's fish obsession, Lucy quickly acquired train tickets to Hargeon and then had to physically drag Natsu onboard before it left.

* * *

Half an hour of green-faced suffering later, Lucy found herself dragging Natsu off the train and towards the port that had been rebuilt surprisingly quickly, considering it had been utterly destroyed just days ago. It would seem that the people of Fiore had mastered rebuilding. "Luucyyy, ugh… please staahp…" Natsu groaned out, as the dragging wasn't helping his motion sickness. Lucy, however, grinned sadistically and just kept walking towards the pier.

Stopping at the first stand she saw, Lucy unceremoniously let go of Natsu, who released a relieved groan and lay on the ground while she talked to the keepsake dealer. He was a tall man with light brown hair, a smooth face, and smile lines that didn't reach his green eyes. He wore an odd and equally hideous combination of floral shirt, overalls, and a tie.

"Do you know where I can get tickets to Aspen Town?" Lucy inquired. "My friend and I have business there."

"Aspen Town, eh? I 'eard that the island's volcano became active again, I did. Nobody's 'eaded there anymore for romantic getaways, so what business could you two 'ave on the island, eh?" the tourist tricker asked suspiciously.

"We're from Fairy Tail!" Happy piped up helpfully.

The tradesman turned up his critical glare at the two. "If you're a mage, what's with your friend?"

"The train gave him motion sickness, and Lucy's dragging didn't help," Happy explained while Natsu groaned again.

The man's eyes narrowed before widening in realization. "Talking cat… motion sickness… Your friend there… wouldn't 'appen to be the Salamander, would 'e?" he asked, somewhere between hope and suspicion. Natsu groaned affirmatively and Happy activated his aera magic, as if to say 'Hey, I can fly, too, you know!' followed by Lucy biting her lip and nodding, unsure whether that would be good or bad.

The keepsake dealer changed personality instantly, breaking out into his best tourist-grabbing grin. "Why didn't ya lead with that, eh?" he asked before turning towards a stack of boxes and yelling, "Klaus! Get out 'ere! We got passengers!"

He turned back to them as a well-muscled man no older than 30, with sunbaked features, dark brown hair and irises the color of the haddock he brandished emerged from behind a stack of boxes. Scars crisscrossed his arms and disappeared up the sleeves of his green t-shirt, which hung free around his cargo shorts and the filet knife sheathed on his belt.

"This is Klaus, my… associate. 'E mans the ship and has a side business as a fisherman. Standard fare to Aspen's port is 2,500 jewel," the salesman stated, while Happy saw stars when he heard the word "fisherman".

"We'll take two tickets and… how much for Happy?" Natsu said, suddenly up again, before realizing what he'd just ordered tickets for. He turned green before the salesman could answer his question.

"Pets ride free. Oh yeh, where're m' manners? I forgot to introduce m'self! The name's Ian Williams, soory aboot that. 'Ere's my business card!" the stand owner said, handing Lucy a snazzy rectangle of cardstock.

One exchange of money later, Lucy stood in a fishing boat- the S.S. _Mary Sue_ \- with Happy on her shoulder while Natsu tried to stall on the dock, Ian next to him. "Lucy, please don't make me get in the boat," the pinkette pleaded for the fifth time.

Lucy sighed, exasperated. "Natsu, we already paid for the tickets, and there's no other way to get to the island."

"But I can swim!" Natsu fervently rebutted.

Ian had grown tired of their bickering. "Don't worry eh, Klaus'll take good care a' ya. Ain't that right?" he asked, pushing the dragonslayer into the Mary Sue. He immediately turned green and managed to say something about boats, torture, and 'worse than, bleargh, trains…' before the big man appeared, delivered a neck-pinch with his meaty hands, and tossed the limp dragon slayer onto his ship's deck. Lucy gasped- she hadn't seen anyone handle Natsu the way Klaus just did and was a little unnerved by it. Then again, they were on a boat, so that might not be anything to worry about.

" _Das ist besser_ ," Klaus stated, walking towards the wheelhouse.

* * *

"Ooh yes, little fairies. You will make a wonderful sacrifice," the gaudily-dressed man said, chuckling darkly. "A perfect duo for our plans."

As he walked away, the curtain covering a wall in his stand swayed, briefly revealing a map of pictures and red twine, a sinister light cast upon it. In that brief instant, one could see one picture tied to all the rest.

A picture of a worn, leather-bound book, simply titled E.N.D.

* * *

 **A/N: So, what'd you think? Love it? Loathe it? Leave a review and tell me! Please! Flames will be used for s'mores and/or redirected to Ikrani.**

 **But seriously, go thank him. He made this much better.**


	2. Isle of Misfortune

**A/N: It took me a while to get this out, as I had work to do, then got mad and restarted it with a POV change. My goal for every chapter from here on out is ≈2k words or more. Oh yes, and rest assured that I have big plans for Klaus…**

 _ **Big Plans… Mwah hah… hahaha…**_ **MWAHAHA** _ ***cough* *hack* haha *eck***_

 **REVISED because I forgot what I named the mayor**

 **REVISED because I stayed at home today to finish my schoolwork, but what do I do? Plug fanfiction into editing software!**  
 **I need help. Anyway, I also went back to revise my translation, but inspection of the synonyms has led me to belive that** _ **teufel**_ **was the right word all along.**

 **Betaread by Ikrani as of 3-18-2019 (official announcement comes on Chapter 9)**

 **DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail. That right belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lucky bastard. I don't make any sort of money off of this, and only own what/who I come up with.**

 **"This is talking,"**

 **'** _ **This is thinking' and special circumstances**_

 **This is When Shit's Goin' Down**

* * *

 **Isle of Misfortune**

When Natsu woke up, the first thing he noticed was his headache, and immediately scrunched his eyes closed. The second thing he noticed was his nausea, which he managed to keep down. _'Darned dragon senses, not coping with transport. Anyway, only one way to fix this.'_

 _'I feel some wood. The air is cooler than before. No more breeze, either.'_

Natsu slowly regained his bearings, and the splitting headache began to fade.

 _'I hear waves... Howls... Lucy ranting. Heh, figures...'_

He picked up on the more subtle noises: groans from the wood, the crackle of a fire, something scurrying.

 _'Footsteps, too.'_

Smells came to his nose: salt, fish, Lucy, Happy, fish, soot, ash smoke, some wolves and rats, a… bear? Also that Klaus guy, and some people he didn't know. Natsu opened his eyes, headache gone now that he'd processed the change, and stood up in the—

 _'PURPLE moonlight? What the hell? What's with the clouds?'_ He couldn't keep the last to himself. "Why is that mountain glowing?"

" _Teufel_ ," came Klaus's flat reply as he emerged from the Mary Sue's hold, carrying their stuff and a net of fish in his grasp. Just the word gave Lucy the shudders, nevermind what it meant. Natsu might've sensed a similar vibe, but the sight of the boat's rocking made him feel sick again.

"I'm never riding one of those things agaaain," Natsu groaned, "and I mean it this time." Lucy grinned sadistically before Klaus threw her her suitcase, Happy his bundle, and waited for Natsu to rise again before tossing the salmon-haired Slayer his pack. Klaus ducked into the pilothouse after batting Happy away from the net, returning with a worn, bi-color duffel. Natsu started to put his jacket in his pack before Lucy snatched it from him.

"It's cold and I didn't bring one!" she exclaimed to his baffled expression.

"You're such a weirdo, Lucy," stated Natsu, before shouldering his pack and setting off after the bobbing white stripe on Klaus's receding duffel.

* * *

The town was a strange place. Houses sagged like a mob of depressed faces, their windows warped and sunken. The purple aurora cast abnormal shadows, and a preternatural silence hung over the area, broken only by the occasional howl and scurry. Even Lucy's suitcase dared not clatter across the cobbles. The silence was overwhelming, unless you happened to be Natsu, of course; he could hear much more and was thus calm in his surroundings. Klaus led the four, net slung over his shoulder and duffel in hand. Lucy had wedged herself in a place of security between the males, and Happy sat on her suitcase.

"How are you two not creeped out!?" hissed the blonde, looking around frantically.

"Jeez, Lucy, it's just some wolves, and rats, and a bear. They're harmless." Natsu brushed her off. "Look, here come some now." He pointed to a mischief of rats as they scurried across the stone.

"I bet they're tasty!" speculated Happy, "But are they as good as fishies?"

Lucy shrieked and started chanting to calm herself down. "They're just animals. They're just animals. They're just animals," she repeated, blindly following Klaus. The big man pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed as though Lucy's mantra was giving him a headache.

Luckily for the fisherman's sanity, they soon stumbled across people and a campfire in front of a stone building, which silenced Lucy. _Un_ luckily for his health, one of those people had leveled a spear at his chest. Lucy's eyes went wide and her hands went up; Klaus scowled; Natsu assumed a fighting stance. Two more guards appeared, brandishing swords.

"Wait!" a swordsman with a monocle cried before squinting. "Is that Klaus? Why, yes it is! Put down your weapons, let them through!"

The others guards quickly lowered their weapons and the spearman stepped aside to let the group pass into the firelight. "Say, who've you brought with you, Klaus old chap?" monocle-guard asked.

"We're Fairy Tail mages!" Natsu exclaimed, eyes set on the fire. Monocle-guard's identifier fell at his shock, and then a smile split the man's face.

"Let's get you to the mayor," Monocle-guard said, righting his brass-edged lens, before walking over to the large wooden doors and rapping them thrice. They opened with a groan and Monocle-guard ushered the mages in and pulled Klaus aside.

"Go through that door, take a left, and he'll be the first room on the right," he instructed the wizards before pulling out his wallet and haggling over Klaus's fish.

The building had rows of pews, split in half by a walkway that stretched from the door to a raised dais, upon which an altar was situated. People knelt in the front rows, heads bowed and hands folded. Others were laid out on the floor and some of the rear pews, asleep. As the mages walked past, several looked up with saddened expressions, before the ones on the right lit up with hope upon seeing the crimson guild mark on Natsu's shoulder.

The trio soon arrived at their destination and opened the door into a room of people seated around a table. The seated ones quickly stopped their bickering, before one—a thin man with salt-and-pepper hair—stood up and shooed the others out another door.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said, smiling tiredly. "That was the city council. They never agree on anything. Anyway, what can I do for you?"

"We have the request you sent to Fairy Tail," Lucy replied, putting her suitcase next to the table. "Something about a 'volcano demon'?"

The man's eyes lit up. "Sit down, sit down," he invited the mages, gesturing at the vacated seats. He continued before the mages could make good on his offer. "I'm the mayor here, name's Tim Carmen. What do you need to get rid of it? Please, ask away."

"First, we need some information," Natsu began as he took a seat, but then his stomach rumbled. "Maybe over lunch," he added sheepishly.

Mayor Carmen paled. "We… have little. Of late, our only food has come from that foreign fisherman, and he can only catch so much."

Natsu's eyes widened, before he growled, "I'm gonna need more info on that thing so I can give it the beating it deserves."

"W-well," the mayor stuttered, taken aback, before his expression hardened, "it caused the volcano to release this constant black smog and begin to glow, which you probably noticed. Our crops failed, and the fish pull in anyone who tries to catch them. Once a week, they attack the dock, and some of the animals became extremely hostile."

His voice started to crack. "22 people are dead or missing- including my son." He looked up at them, "What do you need?"

"Only one thing left to do—" Lucy started.

"Snoop around a volcano!" Natsu cut her off, before running out of the building.

"He's always like this," Happy answered the other two's unspoken question.

* * *

The forest between the town and volcano— or rather, lack of one— was somehow eerier than the dilapidated town. Wolves howled, bears growled, and the occasional tree threw long shadows. Hunks of wood smoldered away and ashes were heaped across the area. The sparse grass swished as if trod upon. Fires sparked out of nowhere, then died just as quickly. They might've stuck around longer, but—

"This field is amazing!" Natsu exclaimed, before gobbling up another blaze right in front of the group.

The path to the volcano quickly shifted to a steep, rocky hill, before turning practically vertical. It didn't help that the stone itself emitted a ghoulish grey light, mixing with the aurora overhead.

"There go my hopes of a purple light party," Lucy groaned, while Natsu ignited his hands and advanced towards the cliff face

"C'mon Lucy, get a move on!" Natsu cried from far overhead.

"How'd you get up there so fast!?"

"It's 'cause he isn't fat like you!" Happy called, already halfway to Natsu's position.

"YOU BETTER TAKE THAT BACK, YOU STUPID CAT!" Lucy roared, clambering up the handholds Natsu had melted into the tuff.

* * *

 _Fairy Tail Guildhall_

"Hey Macao, take a look at this!" Wakaba yelled over his shoulder, newspaper in hand.

"This had better be appropriate, Wakaba," Macao warned, spinning his barstool around from Romeo and their root beers.

"Of course it is!" Wakaba countered defensively. Macao just raised an eyebrow, at which Wakaba jabbed his finger at his newspaper. "It says here, 'King of Fiore to Hold Knighting Ceremony'."

"Lemme see that," Macao demanded disbelievingly.

"What's this I hear about a ceremony!?" Mirajane asked, appearing behind the bar and refilling Romeo's soda. Around half the guild followed her, clustering around Wakaba, who raised his voice so everyone could hear.

"'Civil Servant to be knighted in a week', yadda yadda yadda, 'name withheld to be a surprise' d-d-d-d-dooo, King Toma says, 'anyone who knows my future knight will agree that they deserve this honor fully'," Wakaba read.

"Dad, what's a 'civil servant'?" Romeo asked.

"It's someone whose job is to help people, Romeo," Macao explained.

"So, like one of you guys?" Romeo asked for clarification.

"I guess you could say that," Macao chuckled, ruffling his son's hair.

"I would definitely say that," Master Makarov added from his place atop the bar, before turning towards the tables and yelling, "Cana! Five thousand jewel says it's Erza!"

"You got it master!" the card mage replied from somewhere on the outside of the ring, which started a flurry of betting to the guild's usual bookie.

* * *

 _Weird-ass Subterranean Chamber_

A high-backed chair sat in the middle of a room. Glowing lines connected it to occupied cages- some of the trapped cried, others laid inert in puddles of red. Restraints on the chair glinted cruelly in the lines' glow. A cloaked figure strode around, and the crying ones pressed into the farthest bars as it passed. The figure's shoes clicked on the stone, with the occasional tap from its cane. One hand rubbed the cane's carved top— a schorl pair of dragon's wings— while the other clutched a worn, leather-bound book.

"Yes, father," the hooded figure murmured, "I will complete your work, the Williamses shall always be remembered!"

The cloaked figure cackled, its hood falling back to reveal a maniacal grin plastered on his face with multicolor pants barely visible under the cloak.

* * *

 **Like it? Loathe it? Tell me what you think! REVIEWS ARE MY WRITING DR. PEPPER!**

 ***Note: the duffel bag is trapezoid-shaped with two horizontal black stripes and one big white one in the middle.**

 **Also note: It may sound like the moon drip, but it isn't. It's a glowing volcano. And why doesn't anybody give me some O.C. suggestions? I'd like to have some. I only have so much creativity.**


	3. Into the Volcano

**A/N: Nothing can escape my Grammarly copy/pasting, you hear me!? NOTHING!  
edited 12-15-18**

 **Betaread by Ikrani as of 4-27-19**

 **DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail. That right belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lucky bastard. I don't make any sort of money off of this, and only own what/who I come up with.**

* * *

 **Into the Volcano**

"Finally… there!" Lucy panted, dragging herself onto a spur of flat, glowing-purple rhyolite. Happy landed on the blonde, rolling her over and eliciting a groan as the black flecks dug into her.

"Hey, Lucy!" Natsu called from somewhere in the distance.

"Whaaat?" she groaned, attempting to sit up.

"Up here!" His voice was closer, causing Lucy to open her eyes. She saw…

More porous, yellow-white, glowing tuff— with a line of melted gouges going up it— disappearing into the smog. "There's more? Uuuuugh..." she whined.

"Look Out BELOW!" Natsu yelled, plummeting out of the smog towards the outcropping.

Lucy's outcropping.

She shrieked in terror and dove towards the cliff face. However, instead of being cut by the rock, the tuff gave way. Lucy burst through it, landing in a tunnel on the other side. "Owwwwwww," she groaned, rubbing her shoulder as bits of hardened ash skittered down the black-flecked, glowing stone.

"Wow Lucy, you're even heavier than I thought!" Happy teased, capitalizing on the blonde's preoccupation. "I carried you, like, the whole way! How strong does that make me?"

"SHUT UP, CAT!" Lucy roared, hurling a chunk of rock at the blue animal, who deftly avoided it. However, Natsu, who'd just landed, wasn't so lucky.

"Ow!" yelped the Slayer as the rock smacked him in the face. "What was that for?"

"You nearly KILLED US BOTH!" the blonde mage screeched, glaring at the males.

Natsu looked at her quizzically. "Happy woulda caught ya," he said, waving his hand flippantly, before looking closely at the hole Lucy had punched through the tuff. "What's this?" he asked, seizing a dull knob on the inside. With a change in his stance and plenty of elbow grease, the slab gradually swung into the tunnel, which gently sloped down into the volcano.

'Is that alcohol I smell?' the dragonslayer wondered.

The tunnel's floor was made of the same pale-white, pink- and black-flecked, glowing purple stone as the spur Lucy had stopped on, while the ceiling and walls were made of porous red scoria. The purple glow intensified deeper into the mountain, cutting off their view in a glare of incandescence.

"I think someone wanted to keep people out," Lucy concluded, looking around the tunnel's smooth, glowing walls warily.

"I'm all fired up!" Natsu declared, before dashing down the tunnel, pack still secured.

"Aye, sir!" Happy exclaimed, shooting down the cavern with his magical wings and signature salute.

"Urrgh," Lucy groaned, hauling herself to her feet and stumbling after her guildmates.

* * *

The trip down the tunnel was an engaging one, to say the least. Between the radical temperature spikes, magma streams, hissing gas pockets, falling rocks, ashen air, and weird stone formations, Lucy had more than a few scares inside the safety of her clock-shaped capsule spirit Horologium. She was just glad Natsu had the strength to lug the grandfather clock around with her and Happy's added weight.

"Yugh, what did you eat for breakfast, Lucy?" Natsu huffed as he stepped over a shallow black crevice. "Rocks?"

Horologium announced her response. "'Well excuse me for not being fireproof!' she says indignantly."

Now they came across a strange contraption, tucked into one of the deeper alcoves in the tunnel wall. It was festooned with various tanks and tubes, some of which burrowed into the hot rock.

"This is what smells like alcohol!" Natsu declared, picking up a bowl of dark brown liquid that the last tank dripped into.

"'Put that down and get us through here,' the lady demands," Horologium relayed nonchalantly. "'What'd you find, Natsu?' the cat asks."

"Some beer," Natsu replied, sampling it. "Some _good_ beer."

Then it was bottoms-up as Natsu tipped back and guzzled the whole thing.

"'Let's go before Horologium's time runs out,' she cries fearfully," Horologium said.

"Okay, fine," Natsu grumbled, hoisting the clock over his head again and setting off down the tunnel, unperturbed by the much more common magma lumps.

* * *

Natsu stumbled through a vertical stream of magma into a room of smooth, white, shining purple stone just as Horologium disappeared with a poof and a puff of smoke. Tunnels extended from it in four different directions, one of which was guarded by two men in black robes.

"Intruders!" one cried, slapping a button on a nearby pillar. Strange sirens blared as the robed duo brought their spears into battle stances, and booted feet thundered up the tunnel they were posted before.

"This is what I'm talkin' about!" Natsu exclaimed, fists alight while Lucy scrambled to her feet.

The fire mage delivered a flaming right hook to the button-presser before blocking the second guard's strike with his left forearm. The guard kept up his assault, moving between the dragonslayer and the tunnel in order to buy his comrades time to flank outside the narrow passageway.

With a shout of "Fire Dragon's ROAR!" Natsu unleashed a torrent of flame down the cultists' burrow. His spell was cut short a second later, however, when a gleaming silver fist shot out of the flames and knocked the pinkette to the ground.

"Natsu!" Happy shouted, diving towards his downed friend.

With the fire cut off, the fist's owner could be seen. He stood tall, covered in chain mail. A hood of links disappeared under a steel helmet with a long nasal guard that matched his eyes' steel-gray hue. His right hand—which had punched Natsu—rested on the leather-bound grip of a sword, with the scabbard ending near his metal-covered calves.

Lucy's eyes scanned the armored figure, before drifting over the black-robed men who were pouring into the cavern, with her fingers picking through her keys the whole way. Then her eyes fell on Natsu, unconscious, with Happy flitting about him frantically, and her grip tightened on what she knew to be a golden Zodiac Key.

" _Tu das nicht_ ," the armored figure warned, waggling a finger. The deep voice made it clear that Lucy knew the man in that mail.

"Klaus?" Lucy asked, shocked. There was no way the kind but enigmatic fisherman was working with the malevolent forces in the volcano. The armored man merely nodded, while more black-robed ones grabbed the unconscious Natsu.

"I won't let you take him!" Lucy declared, whipping out a key. "Open, Gate—"

Her summons was cut off as an elbow wrapped around her neck and mail links dug in. Lucy struggled and flailed, losing focus as her trachea was forced shut and carotid artery ceased taking the sulfur-tainted oxygen to her brain. Her key ring slipped from her grasp, and she felt rather than saw everything fade to black.

* * *

When Lucy regained consciousness, the first thing she noticed was the ceiling— rough-hewn and yellow-white, and faintly glowing purple. Then she noticed the cool breeze and the soft surface under her, which definitely did not fit the volcano. Lucy sat up in a bed and scanned the messy room, from the door to a bare stone shelf on the opposite wall. There were two doors in total—one well-made, the other haphazardly attached and leaning— and a dresser stood in the corner, next to a small table and a chair, and an uneven skylight in the ceiling was made pointless by the glowing stone. All in all, it looked like a hotel room carved into the rock.

Then footsteps clacked down on stone and the haphazard door creaked, and Lucy dove under the bed.

" _Was?_ " the fisherman's voice rumbled through the room, and Lucy's grip tightened on the familiar shape of her key ring—

'Wait, _why_ do I have that? You'd think these people would remove access to my spirits.'

Then a face with sunbaked features peered below the mattress, and smiled. "I will not hurt you, Lucy," the big fisherman said. However, the celestial mage had already prepared it, and—

"Lucy Kick!" she shouted, swinging her foot towards Klaus's face. However, instead of meeting fleshy resistance, chain links dug into her ankle and dragged her from under the bed with a yelp.

"Calm down," the big man soothed, wearing the same armor, hands out in a placating gesture. "I am here to help."

"Then why'd you attack Natsu—and me?! And since when do you speak Common?" the blonde asked incredulously.

"I have a cover to maintain, and if I had not attacked your friend, I would have been made. I've spoken your language since I was fifteen," Klaus explained. "Anyway, now I need your help."

"To deal with the men in black?" Lucy asked, still skeptical.

"Yes, with them. I have been undercover in various slaver groups as a sleeper agent, most of which have used me as a..." The big man paused, searching for the right word. "-Janissary. Anyway, I recently received the order to start bringing them in."

"Undercover... Are you a Rune Knight or something?"

The man's eyebrows knit in irritation, either from the questioning or the comparison, and it showed in his voice. "I work for the king. Will you listen to what I have to say or not?"

"Okay," the celestial mage meekly acquiesced.

Klaus's anger evaporated like water in the desert. "So, these slavers are a group of cultists trying to raise a demon with the volcano. They have cast a spell on it so that it won't erupt until they need its power to awaken that demon. This has caused a buildup in pressure, and as a result, the eruption will be massive, and everything on this island will die."

Lucy gasped, horrified.

"Yes, I know," Klaus continued, grinning evilly. "But the cultists do not. Anyways, I need you to get the townspeople into the _Mary Sue_ 's hold. I have put a protective enchantment on her that should ensure their safety. I will deal with the cultists."

Lucy looked hurt. She stood, yelling at the fisherman, "I can't just leave my friend! Why don't _you_ get the townspeople on your boat?"

"Listen to me, Heartfilia," Klaus growled, stopping Lucy in her tracks. "You will not believe how many missing persons reports your father has filed, and how many my friend complained to me about. I can protect the people they've _entführt_ — er, kidnapped. You can't. So sit down, listen, and let me do my job, or good people will die."

Lucy sat back down. "How can you protect people from a volcanic eruption?" she inquired.

Klaus grinned. "I have a few powers, too. _Clipeus! Armadura!_ " he barked, stamping his foot. Magic filled the air, before disappearing.

"What did you just do?" Lucy asked, barely hiding her panic.

"I called for my equipment. It should get here any moment now— _ach_ , there it is!" the big man said as a chest plate soared through the skylight, closely followed by more steel armor, with their multitude of dents, dings, and scratches glinting in the mountain's glow. He secured a piece around his gut before the chest piece floated over and dropped onto him, followed by pairs of rerebraces and vambraces. Gauntlets secured themselves along the man's mail-covered arms. A few plates stuck to his thighs, and steel sabatons slipped onto his feet, followed by greaves on his lower legs. A cylindrical helmet _thunked_ onto the table, and a white surcoat with a black cross settled over Klaus's chest to complete his look. Then a large, iron-shaped shield fell onto the bed, straps facing up.

" _Verdammter Helm_. Never works," Klaus grumbled, picking up the painted steel cylinder and putting it on his head. "I can use that shield," the armored man stated, pointing at the one next to Lucy, his voice somehow not muffled, "To create a magical barrier that should protect a few other people. Your fire mage friend will be fine— he already trudged through some magma, and nothing happened."

He then opened the haphazardly attached door and produced the sword he had earlier and a circular shield. "You can slide down the volcano on this—it will go faster." he said, offering the second shield while he buckled the sword belt around his waist.

"Wait… why are you so calm about this?" Lucy asked, a little unnerved by his stable demeanor as she held the targe.

"I have been through worse," Klaus replied, his voice relaying the morbid grin under his helmet as he strapped on the heater shield. "Wish me luck."

With that last plea for understanding, he tightened the shield to his forearm and stepped out into the tunnel.

"Good luck," Lucy replied meekly, before climbing through the skylight and sitting atop the shield. "We'll both need it."

She sighed, before pushing off down the volcano's near-vertical slope.

* * *

 **A/N: So, what'd you think? Love it? Loathe it? Tell me, please!**

 **You may have noticed, all Klaus's defense-oriented spells are in Notlatin. If you're wondering what language he slips into during speech, that's German. My source for this is Google Translate, so if you know better, please tell me. Also, if my armor-speak is too much for you to google, just imagine a knight from the 1300s donning prohibitively thick armor Iron Man style.**


	4. According to Plan?

**AN: You will probably notice that my writing style is changing. My previous format looked weird and occurred too fast for me, so I'll probably redo the earlier chapters. Sometime.**

 **Also, WHOOHOO! A CHAPTER WRITTEN IN ONE DAY!**

 **Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail. That belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lucky bastard.**

* * *

When Lucy hit the third bump down the volcano, she realized something.

 _This is the most reckless, dangerous, and all around_ insane _thing I've ever done._

And boy, did she regret it.

Her throat had gone hoarse before she hit the smog, and her stomach had climbed into it around the 40 mile-an-hour mark. Lucy had tilted the shield up to cut her speed, but that just made everything bumpier, so she'd lowered it back. The shower of white-hot sparks behind her certainly didn't help her nerves.

However, Lucy was slowly gaining control of her descent, even if it wasn't as much as she'd like. If she leaned the right way, she could alter her course enough to avoid the major obstacles.

So far, at least.

Klaus's skylight had been on the opposite side of the volcano from Aspen town, so she had to make her way around to the right in order not to land in the sea. It didn't help that the slope was steeper going towards the town—you'd think it would be the other way around.

She just hoped she could make it before the shield wore out.

* * *

Everything was coming along nicely for Ian.

' _My father secured the Book of E.N.D. forty years ago and carved out a suitable complex in Mt. Stoneridge,'_ he recalled. ' _Imaginative name, that one.'_

' _Under his leadership, the Association for Legendary Artifacts and Articles had figured out how to harness nature's power to raise one of Lord Zeref's demons. His greatest creation, to be accurate.'_

' _Now, I've secured a suitable sacrifice for the demons' rise. A powerful fire mage— the Salamander himself, one of the few who could pose a threat to the great fire demon,_ ' the gaudily-dressed man inwardly boasted.

 _Admittedly, we still require some power, but it is nothing in proportion to what the volcano supplied. And, if the fire mage could supply power, then they wouldn't even need other human sacrifices! I also procured this sweet cane!_

' _Oh, the council will have a field day with this!_ ' Ian thought, continuing his inspection of the sacrifices as the pinkette fire mage was restrained in the high-backed chair.

"Sir!" one of the underlings said, running up to the cane-toting man, "Preparations are almost complete for the ritual. Would you like to do the honors?"

Straightening, Ian Williams beamed down at the man with his signature tourist-grabbing smile. "Why, yes I would," he stated, ambling over to the unconscious dragonslayer. Carefully, methodically, Ian laid the worn, leather-bound Book of E.N.D. on Natsu's lap, and it seemed to give a short, satisfied hum. "If this works, free salmon for everyone!" Ian declared, and they all cheered, because _damn_ could that man cook a fish.

* * *

Klaus was not having a good time. Sure, he hadn't stumbled across anyone, and that could only mean one thing.

They were preparing the ritual to resurrect E.N.D. As a servant of the king— and by extension, the people— of Fiore, he couldn't let that happen.

So, there he was, charging through tunnels towards the central atrium, directly over the composite volcano's vent. His armor was heavier than he remembered, probably because he hadn't worn his full plate in a while.

Darned cover identity.

Alas, the only thing he could do was run.

He just hoped he could make it before time ran out.

* * *

Lucy had gotten the hang of mountain sledding. She had managed to go around the volcano and was aiming for the open field for a straight shot back into Aspen town. Albeit, she was going at a speed that would make her head spin if she could read it and was sure the shield should have worn out by now. Lucy chose not to question the second one, instead moving to dodge the stone outcrop her earlier ascent had stopped on.

Mage life was crazy.

Her acceleration seemed to have stopped, if the force of the wind whipping past her face was anything to go by. She was descending rapidly, passing 500 feet. She aimed toward a ramp-like projection.

400 feet.

300 feet.

200 feet. The Celestial mage braced for impact, gripping the shield's central handle tightly.

100 feet, 60, 30. Lucy felt her momentum change directions, and her stomach found a new home between her kidneys as the shield left rock. However, her stomach's contents seemed to like it in her throat, and Lucy barfed into the intermittent flames below.

* * *

' _Everything is going splendidly,'_ Ian thought, surveying his underlings as they performed the ritual to resurrect the demon. The lines were painted, the blood and magic were flowing, the eruption safeguards were removed, and the important cultists were behind some of Ian's lava protection runes.

What? He couldn't protect them _all_.

' _I wonder where Klaus is…'_ the cane-toting man pondered. _'Probably with the girl. He did seem awfully… interested,'_ he concluded, snickering.

The volcano gave an angry rumble, and magma slowly oozed up through holes in the floor as bits of rock and dust fell from the ceiling.

' _Everything is going splendidly.'_

* * *

Uncontrolled flight was no longer on Lucy Heartfilia's bucket list. Not that it ever was, but I digress. She soared over the occasional treetop, and her voice had apparently come back, because she was screaming the whole way.

"AAAAAAAAAH!" Lucy screeched, voice cutting through the air like the shield she rode, flying over a tree.

"AAAAAAAAAH!" she continued, soaring over a pack of wolves, trying to protect their ears against her shrill terror.

"AAAAAAGUH!" Lucy's scream ended as abruptly as the shield she was riding hit the ground. Apparently, it was of very high quality, and it just kept on sliding into town at a reduced speed. Her eyes widened as she neared the town, before hitting the bumpy cobblestone streets. "G-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y" Lucy groaned, skidding down the uneven stones. The ground was fairly level here, and her travel slowed down.

It slowed to a manageable speed in front of the church with a campfire, and Lucy tilted off. Monocle-guard leaned over her. "Go… boat!" the blonde spluttered deliriously, succumbing to unconsciousness as the volcano gave an angry rumble.

* * *

The Volcano gave an angry rumble as Klaus stepped through an arch into the main tunnel. Bits of rock dinged off his armor, and the plates clanked as he kept up his pace. He then stopped and pressed his hand against a column for support, panting heavily. His plate armor was much heavier than he remembered.

Darned rations.

Klaus set off again, slightly slower this time. He took a right, then a left, then went down a ways before he rounded a bend and could see an entrance to the central atrium. Sickly green light flickered across the stone, as if from green fire.

That couldn't be good.

Klaus strode forward determinedly, and entered the—

Oh shit, that _definitely_ wasn't good.

Lines of green flame traced across the floor in an intricate pattern. Multiple cultists stood in rune boxes, chanting ominously. Piteous moans echoed from cages at one side of the room. A circle of cultists danced in a ring in the center, and magma bubbled up in various places. At first glance, it seemed chaotic and carelessly laid out, but Klaus knew Ian Williams had assembled it meticulously. He set out for the cages.

The scarred man reached the cages without complaint— the cultists were too wrapped up in their summoning. Since he had the keys (who better to keep them than your employed soldier?), he unlocked the cages of the movable ones, and dragged them into one cage. For the immovable ones, he chanted a spell, " _Aequa ministra dui scelerim arguemur dui a fledus, Salvadorim in luces, vivere."_ Klaus then lumped all the hostages into one cage and climbed in after them, locking the door. He assumed a defensive stance over the mostly unconscious pile of people, shield up and braced with both arms. " _Sanctus Clypeus!"_ he barked, and a glowing, white-orange sphere of magic formed around himself and the others in the cage.

The volcano rumbled again, louder this time, as if enraged that humans would be protected from nature's wrath.

Klaus looked back towards the large chair in the atrium's center. He didn't have the best vantage point, but what he saw nonetheless scared the big man.

Smoke obscured Natsu's torso and legs, but Klaus could see two black projections twisting up from his pink mop, shining in the firelight. Batlike wings threw shadows on the far wall, and a thick, reptilian tail twitched.

" _Mein Gott,"_ Klaus gasped.

Everything was consumed in heat and light as the volcano roared in reply.

* * *

 **So, what'd ya think? Love it? Loathe it? Tell me! I NEED REVIEWS LIKE I NEED DR. PEPPER! Give me more so that I can crank more of these chapters out! I also posted a poll!**

 **I edited this slightly once I realized the full implications of the former versions. I only changed one sentence.**


	5. Release

**A/N: How long has it been since I posted? Three weeks? Four? Eh, Oh well. Sorry, school's kept me busy. You will see my take on how E.N.D. should be/work. You will also see the first fight scene I've ever written, so constructive criticism is welcomed (and pleaded for).**

 **DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail. That right belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lucky bastard. I don't make any sort of money off of this, and only own what/who I come up with.**

 **WARNING: (Chapter 465) SPOILERS AHEAD. CONSIDER YOURSELVES WARNED. Also swearing.**

"This is talking,"

' _This is thinking,' and special circumstances_

 **This is When Shit's Goin' Down**

* * *

 **Release**

Lucy was ripped from the grasp of sleep by an earth-shattering _BOOOOM!_ The floor beneath her pitched violently, as if the sound alone ripped it from its foundations, and she was thrown into a pile of limbs.

The floor slammed back to level, before tilting in the opposite direction. Groans abounded as people rolled over each other into a pile on the opposite wall, audible now that the deafening roar had faded to a menacing growl.

Disoriented from the sudden volume extremes and insensitive tossing, Lucy tried to extricate herself from the tangle of bodies, but only managed to get more deeply interwoven. Her arms were pinned between people and rough-hewn wood, her torso tightly pressed against grimy, sweat-soaked hides. Her face was pressed against someone's knee, and it seemed her left foot was free, while her right felt like it was stuck in someone's mouth.

"'Eh're towf imma mowf!" someone cried, pronunciation heavily impeded, confirming Lucy's fear.

Then she realized something else, and her cheeks burned in embarrassment

She was wearing _a skirt._

* * *

 _Natsu's eyes eased open in an unfamiliar plane._

 _A white floor extended on for as far as he could see, and trees sprouted from the blank ground. A ways away, a wall of stone, riddled with caves, rose from the bleached surface, and a fiery glow crowned its ridged summit. He heard the flap of massive wings, invisible against the dark sky, and something touched down behind him._

 _Natsu spun around, only to be met by a strange figure lurking in the shadow of a dirtless tree._

 _It stepped into the light._

 _Two midnight-black horns spiraled upwards from a wild shock of pink hair. Red-ringed onyx eyes sparkled from under mischievously set brows, and fangs flashed in a cruel smirk. Furled batwings peeked up over its shoulders, the claws on them gleaming wickedly in the fickle light. A pair of char colored lines swished up its outer arms, before splitting apart into arcs around its deltoids,* which space was filled with three thick, black, diagonal lines._ _Another set of dark streaks danced across the being's pectorals and down its abdomen, disappearing into a pair of starkly white harem pants._ _ **He**_ _radiated an aura of pure malevolence._

" _What are you and where the hell am I?" Natsu demanded, jabbing a finger at his tattooed self._

" _ **You don't remember me?"**_ _the other Natsu asked, feigning hurt, before a devious grin spread across his face._ _ **"You are me, but I am not you. And this,"**_ _he continued, throwing his talons into the air,_ _ **"Is all in our mind. I would like to formally welcome you to your new home, Conscience. I have no plans to hear from you again."**_

" _What?" Natsu asked, confusion scrawled across his features. The other him merely chuckled darkly._

" _ **I want control of our body back,"**_ _The other Natsu growled. Then, quick as lightning, he punched the dragonslayer in the face, decking him. When Natsu hit the ground, he followed up with a brutal kick to the teen's midsection._ _ **"One would think dragon spawn to be stronger than**_ **that** _ **,"**_ _the horned one taunted, smirk replastered on his face. However, normal Natsu wasn't done. He slowly rose to his feet, still woozy from the punch. He shook his head, as if to clear it, before launching his own attack on the tattooed one._

" _You won't be taking anything from me!" the guild mage bellowed, deciding to add magic to his seemingly ineffective flurry of punches and kicks. "Fire Dragon Iron Fist!" he yelled, igniting his hand, before his blow was caught in his winged opponent's talon._

" _ **It will take more than that to best your demon, Conscience. I, ah,**_ **recommend** _ **you yield, if you know what's good for you."**_ _the horned one sneered, slamming Natsu into the blank ground with the seized fist._

" _I'll never surrender to you! I don't even know who you are!" the dragonslayer defied from the ground._

" _ **Good,"**_ _the horned one snickered heartlessly,_ _ **"It will be fun to break you, Son of Igneel,"**_ _he continued, holding out his right talon, palm-up, for an ethereal blue flame to spark to life. It was strangely enthralling, the flicker, dancing arctic, Aegean, and admiral blue. It seemed to promise pleasure, but images of misery and despair ghosted through it the deeper one looked, formed by the twirling soot it spawned._ _ **"Then I can burn the rest of your miserable, bleeding-heart guild, and end those overgrown lizards for good."**_ _the being growled, merciless eyes flashing,_ _ **"I already know where to start."**_ _With that, the tartarean fire grew in his talons, and he hurled it Natsu._

 _Natsu couldn't remember what it was like to be burned, but the hellish flame felt thousands of times worse than his wildest fears. Grim images flashed through his head, unbidden._

 _A white-haired girl, broken and bloodied, lying in the mud. Her eyes stared, unseeing, into the night sky._

 _A great red dragon, ripped apart and left in grisly chunks._

 _A city, consumed by chthonic blue conflagration, people and buildings turned to ash. Other atrocities danced in the unrelenting blaze._

 _A mob of lizards, tearing a half-eaten corpse to shreds._

 _A scorch-black talon, plunging into a man's chest. Blue flames ignited around him, and he screamed in agony._

 _Natsu echoed the man with his own roar as he was engulfed by the blue inferno._

* * *

Klaus was having a hard time keeping his barrier up. Yes, it was a powerful defensive spell, but he'd never tested it against a volcanic eruption. He was more used to blocking spells and projectile weapons—like catapults. It also didn't help that his power was being sapped by two defensive fields. The armored man was just happy that it served as a temperature insulator as well, or else everyone in his charge would be a crispy critter.

Klaus's protective orb started to slow down amongst the thick lava as his breathing grew heavier. It continued to rise, successfully breaching the geyser of molten rock's upper end. Klaus kept his eyes firmly shut, as he had since the eruption's beginning, since he liked his eyesight. Then, he heard a tormented roar, much like that dragon's—

The temperature spiked inside his barrier, and the scarred man's train of thought derailed as his magical sphere was fiercely flung further skyward.

* * *

It took a few minutes, and the floor kept shifting, but the pile of limbs was untangled, and Lucy was freed from the townspeople. Nobody had so much as implied seeing up her skirt, but her face was nonetheless aflame. It was good for her self-image that she hadn't worn any of her more… _risqué_ undergarments.

Now that Lucy was free, she had the opportunity to look around, and realize that the shifting floor beneath her was actually the second deck of the _Mary Sue_. Stairs led lower down, to what she assumed was the ballast chamber, and a harsh red-orange glow drifted in through the openings to the upper deck. Several iron brackets emerged from the floor and ceiling's support beams, which she realized were for removed bulkheads. The wood-and-iron panels were leaned against the port and starboard hull amidships** to make room for the townspeople, who were huddled together on the faded green planks, moved deck chairs, and a hastily-straightened mattress. The motor purred in the stern, but the strange growl drowned it out unless one leaned against it for balance, like Lucy currently was.

"What happened?"

Lucy was unaware she blurted out the question, and felt a little nervous when the people all looked her way. Then another one rose to the front of her mind. "Where's Happy?" she asked, alarm lighting her features as panic rose in her chest.

"Do you mean the blue cat?" one man asked, continuing when Lucy nodded, "I'm pretty sure he's topside, sleeping on the fish. As for what happened, you'd have to ask the ones on deck." Lucy made her way to a staircase, stumbling when the boat rocked, and carefully made her way up the stairs.

The poop deck was surprisingly organized, given the fact it was at 90 degrees only a few minutes ago. Several people scurried around, operating the boat with a calming ease, and the mayor stood in the pilothouse. Happy jumped her with a joyous peal of, "Lushiii! I was wondering when you'd wake up!" The mayor shot her a pained smile that may have been because of the harsh, orange light illuminating the boat, and night-black clouds still covered the sky.

Then the blonde looked up, and realized the full implications of her situation.

A glowing column of liquid fire split the darkness, clouds of ash and dust dancing around it. The bottom half of Mount Stoneridge was well illuminated, as the top half was missing. Lucy lifted a hand against the artificial sun, and noted that the sea had calmed from 20- to perhaps 5-foot swells.

Then she heard an anguished roar, and everything changed as the island's remains exploded. The celestial mage covered her ears and dove belowdecks to escape the unrelenting noise and shower of rocks hurtling towards the _Mary Sue._

* * *

 _Natsu didn't register the myriad of blows that rained upon him, as the blue blaze drowned out all other physical pain, and the images that flashed through his head countered his thinking capabilities._

 _Then a thought of his own somehow broke through the onslaught of trauma._

'Can I eat it?'

 _He tried it. The flames covered every inch of his skin, so he opened his mouth and chomped down. His neck spasmed from the pain, and he swallowed the fire._

 _The pain as it traveled down his throat was even worse than the blaze across his skin, but it was temporary. It disappeared, and the pain from the flames lessened just the tiniest bit, and the horrid images appeared just slightly less often. He decided to do it again, and promptly sucked in all the tongues of fire upon his right arm. The pain was even less now, and he could think fairly clearly, so the pinkette kept at it._

 _The winged self-proclaimed demon had turned from his stricken opponent to more important matters._ _ **"Let's see… where, oh where, shall I put my control throne? No sense in having a body as uncomfortable as that damned book. This place needs some**_ **serious** _ **redecorating, too. Some skulls-on-a-pike, floors of jasper,"**_ _the horned one listed, poofing things into existence as he listed them off._ _ **"I also need some chains for my pesky con— dammit, where'd he go?"**_ _he asked when he turned around, fresh chains in hand, to find that the dragonslayer wasn't where he had landed from the last kick._

 _His question was answered by one "Fire Dragon Talon!" as Natsu cartwheeled his foot into the demon's cheek, sending him towards the wall of caves._

" _ **Well, what do you know? It seems the scaled ash cloud trained you better than I thought. Greater men than you have succumbed to my flames,"**_ _the winged one complimented backhandedly, rising to his feet._ _ **"However, I have plenty of oth—"**_ _the tattooed one started, but was cut off by Natsu's fist. The demon turned back, rage in his eyes and a blue blaze in his hair._ _ **"Fuck this! The gloves are OFF! It's time for me to show you ALL the tools at a Demon Lord's disposal!"**_ _He took flight, and fire danced across his body, flares firing off his spread bat wings._ _ **"You will BOW to E.N.D.!"**_ _he declared, voice demonic and guttural, as red consumed his irises and the air around him crackled with murderous intent. Rocks moved, the temperature spiked, and the trees burned to ash as he summoned a spontoon that seemed a shifting mesh of hot fire and cold steel. The Demon leveled his hellish spear at the intrepid dragonslayer, the wing-styled prongs glinting in its own light._ _ **"Surrender now, and your friends won't die before you."**_

* * *

 **Well, that seems like a good place to end it! And a spontoon (or half-pike) is a kind of spear.**

 ***Where Natsu's guildmark is**

 ****halfway between the bow (front) and stern (back)**

 **So, how was it? Like it? Loathe it? Please forgive the poor-quality fight, as it was the first I've ever written, and yes, the thought processes I depict follow my own.**


	6. Release, Part Two

**A/N: This is the second chapter I released at a reasonable hour, so enjoy some more fighting and a sprinkle of exposition! REVISED**

 **DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail. That right belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lucky bastard. I don't make any sort of money off of this, and only own what/who I come up with.**

 **WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD(?) CONSIDER YOURSELVES WARNED.**

"This is talking,"

' _This is thinking,' and special circumstances_

 **This is When Shit's Goin' Down**

* * *

 **Release: Part Two**

Klaus knew bad things were happening when he started to descend. Between the periodic roars from below, his draining magic reserves and labored breathing, and the odds of a pyroclastic flow, it was easy to tell how far sideways his mission had gone. The unconscious townspeople in his spherical shield had yet to awaken, so that was a relief. The dust particles that had enshrouded him since the geyser of molten rock had yet to die down, glowing faintly whenever they bounced off his magical sphere, eliminating visibility past the shining barrier.

Then he popped out of the clouds, and could observe his true downward speed. He almost wished that he wasn't freed from the eruption column, so that the true repercussions would remain unknown to him. The scarred man and his charges were easily 3,000 feet off the water's surface, gaining speed as the superheated agglomeration howled down after them.

2,100 feet. Was that his boat over there?

400\. Yes, it would be hard to mistake that green deck and shimmering barrier typical of his defensive arsenal.

He hit a wave, sliding down into the trough and up the next crest, changing his downward acceleration into horizontal momentum. Jumping three more waves, the spherical shield touched down and carved a path on the water, towards the _Mary Sue_.

* * *

Lucy was confused when all that she heard from abovedecks were dull _thud_ s, and the continued roaring that could only incite fear. The rocks had been flying towards the boat fast enough to crack _something_ —

But then again, the armored fisherman _said_ he put a defensive enchantment on the boat.

' _I guess it's safe up above,'_ the blonde thought, stumbling back up the steps. When she ascended them, the scenery had changed. The column of lava had stopped coming out of the island, which no longer existed, and the seas had roughened to perhaps 7-foot swells, rocking the wooden fishing boat harder than before the agonized roar's beginning. They had sailed out far enough for some sunlight to appear, but most was blocked out by the massive black cloud of falling volcanic particles. One of the more adventurous children stumbled out after her, small hand clutching the railing as the boat rocked.

"Look, Mommy!" the child cried, pointing his grubby finger towards the massive cloud of superheated ash. Or, upon closer inspection, just below it, where a shimmer of gold could be seen, falling at an angle slightly towards them. His wonder-filled voice seemed to rouse the people belowdecks, and a few of them ascended the stairs. "What is it?" he asked, latching on to the skirts of a woman—presumably his mother.

"I don't know, sweetie," she replied, picking up the young child and leaving the stairwell on sure sea-legs. The others left the stairwell and squinted at the falling glimmer.

"That's Captain Lukas Klossner of the King's First Magical Battalion, C Company," Monocle-Guard stated.

"Who?" Lucy asked, confused. ' _Since when does the army have a magical battalion? And what's with the weird name?'_

"You probably know him better as Klaus, the brown-haired janissary/fisherman. He's been undercover in several slaver organizations and ended up 'owned' by the ones wreaking havoc upon Aspen Town," Monocle-guard explained, putting air quotations around the word 'owned'.

"How do you know that, Charles?" the one who held Capt. Klossner at spearpoint earlier asked.

"I'm a sergeant in the very same unit. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make sure the Captain doesn't miss the boat, as he's the only one who can protect us from _that_ ," Charles the Monocled Guard replied, pointing to the descending cloud of assured fiery death, before turning to Lucy. "I'm going to need your help, miss…" he trailed off, asking for her name with his expression.

"Lucy is fine," the celestial mage said nervously, before determination hardened across her face, "How can I help?"

"You wouldn't perchance have anything capable of stopping about…" Charles the sergeant paused, as if doing the math, "A ton, moving, I'd say… 300 miles an hour?" All the other adults paled, as that was more than enough force to rip the _Mary Sue_ in half.

"I may have just the thing," Lucy grinned, reaching for her key pouch, "Open, Gate of the Golden Bull, Taurus!" she cried, holding the golden key in the air. A golden magical seal appeared with its characteristic _Ding-Dong!_ before a man-cow wielding a massive battle-axe and wearing scant more than a speedo appeared from it. Lucy cut him off before he could make any comments. "Taurus, you need to help us stop _that,_ " the blonde said, gesturing to the golden ball of protection hurtling towards them.

"Will dooo, Miss Luuuucy!" the atypical minotaur mooed, marching over to the starboard bow and bracing for the sphere's impact with his outstretched hands.

"I take it you're new in Fairy Tail?" Charles asked, polishing his monocle.

"How did you know?"

"It's my job to know," Charles replied, replacing his monocle.

"I thought that that was what the Magic Council was for," Lucy countered, eyebrows knit together in question, as her gaze drifted from the glowing golden globe to the monocled man.

"Hah!" Charles laughed dryly, "Somebody has to check those simpering incompetents," he continued, arms outstretched as he activated his magic and the glowing protective spell visibly slowed. "I suggest you channel more of your magic, as my energy manipulation can only do so much."

* * *

Ian's day had gone from perfect to terrible in the span of a couple seconds. As it turns out, he had underestimated the volcano's eruptive force.

Severely.

All but two of his rune barriers had failed, and the island had evidently been destroyed completely, because he was now treading water. They had also lost the book.

On the bright side, he could dispel the last barriers, as the prevailing winds had blown the eruption column—and ensuing pyroclastic flow— Southeast, away from the island, and most of the lava had followed it.

So, there he and his inner circle were, trying to stay afloat where an island had once been.

* * *

 _The self-proclaimed Demon Lord had launched multiple fiery blasts at the intrepid dragonslayer, followed by a barrage of spear strikes and hurling the chains he had created. Natsu had managed to dodge all of it, albeit just barely. Unfortunately, that seemed to only enrage E.N.D. more, whose speed increased proportionally._

" _ **Die, righteous scum!"**_ _the horned one bellowed, savagely swinging the hellish half-pike at Natsu, who attempted to dodge. The blade sliced his thigh, and both beings were alerted to it— one by the strange sensations it sent through his system, and the other by his opponent's twitching._

 _The cut on his leg burned like the blue fire from before, but there were no flames for him to consume this time. It also roused a feeling he had only ever attributed to three things._

 _The demon's eyes lit up in victory as the other pinkette flopped around like a fish out of water._

 _ **"Now you will learn the true meaning of terror, Conscience!"**_ _the demon spat, raising his spear as the ground seemed to change color, and they were in a cave. A harsh light was cast across his features, amplifying his malevolent aura with the sharp contrast of his features, which were twisted into a cruel smirk._

WOOOO! _Something whistled from behind the light_

" _ **What?"**_ _the demon asked, squinting into the light as the dragonslayer beneath him shook even more._

CHUGGA-chugga CHUGGA-chuggaCHUGGA-chuggaCHUGGAchuggaCHUGGACHUGGACHUGCHUGCHUG! _Whatever it was behind the light continued on, accelerating towards the spear-wielding pinkette. Two lines of steel sprouted on either side of Natsu, and wooden planks solidified beneath him._

 **CHUGCHUGCHUG!**

" _ **What the h—"**_

 **THUNK!**

 _The demon's question was cut off as a train thundered down the tracks he was standing between, plastering him to the front of the locomotive. The dragonslayer turned green as its cars passed over him, hands covering his ears against the clacking of wheels against track._

 _Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the train rounded a bend and was gone. Natsu used his new vertical freedom to empty the contents of his stomach over a rail, before rolling back onto the ties between them to let his senses swim back into place._

* * *

Lucy wasn't too sure about how Charles's impromptu plan to stop Captain Klossner's sphere was going to work. Taurus was her best (and only) option for physical strength, and Charles had significantly slowed down the incoming ball of magic, but it was still hurtling their way at obscene speeds. Not to mention the black cloud bearing down on them from above.

"Are you sure this will work?" one of the townspeople asked, unwittingly voicing Lucy's thoughts.

"You'll never know your limits unless you test them," Charles replied, "Now BRACE FOR IMPACT!" he bellowed, sending everyone remaining on deck scrambling for a secure place to cling to.

Then the golden globe left the water, before coming down and meeting Taurus's hands. The man-cow's boots dug into the wooden planks beneath him, and the boat began to spin.

" _Ed Clipeos!"_ someone shouted from the inside, and both shining barriers evaporated. A dozen unconscious people spilled onto Taurus, who disappeared in a _poof_ of magic with a bell toll, as a thirteenth person, decked in armor plate and a lightly-singed surcoat, fell onto the deck.

The cloud of ash was only 200 feet above them.

" _Sanctus Clypeus!"_ the Captain shouted, and a new orange-white barrier sprouted around the _Mary Sue_ as the black cloud of superheated particles slammed into the ocean's surface.

* * *

 _When Natsu's senses returned to him, a thick, hairy arm was offered. Recognizing the scent, he grabbed it, starting his demand as it pulled him to his feet._

 _"Fight me, Gildarts!" he declared, throwing a flaming punch at the orange-haired man._

" _Now isn't the time, Natsu," Gildarts responded, catching the punch in his other hand. The flames dissipated, revealing a stern look on the normally upbeat man's face. "We have to deal with the demon vying for control of you."_

 _Natsu, apparently cowed by the unusual response, asked another question. "But how'd you get here? I thought you were gone on a Century Quest."_

" _It's like that demon said," Gildarts grinned, "This is all in your imagination. Whatever you want to happen, happens."_

" _So you mean I could beat Erza here!?" the pinkette asked, giddiness back, as a devious smile spread across his face._

" _Well, theoretically, but we have more pressing matters to deal with." An enraged yell echoed down the cave, emphasizing the older man's point. "Now follow me," Gildarts ordered, setting off down the rails the train came from._

* * *

Everything seemed to be going well aboard the _Mary Sue_. The captain's shield was glowing golden, and no volcanic particles had gotten past it.

However, a different story was to be told inside a certain man's suit of armor. Klossner was gasping for air, and his steel shell had yet to cool from the temperature spikes and his own rising heat output. To assist his quest for air, the big man took his hands off the deck to remove his helmet. The cylindrical steel crashed to the deck, followed by the iron cap typical of the Fiorian army, and the mail coif he flung back off his head. He got three unhindered lungfuls of sweet, sweet oxygen.

However, the big man's flow of magic stopped when his gauntlets left the deck below him, and the cloud of ash quickly wore holes in his now-unpowered magical barrier.

The big man slammed his hands back onto the planks and picked up the flow, but the damage was done. Holes had been poked through his shield, and superheated gases and dust were pouring through them. It would take magic power he didn't have to close them.

But luckily, Charles the Energy Manipulation Mage was there.

" _Mehr Macht!"_ the armored man barked at his subordinate, lacking the time and oxygen to convert his thoughts into a complete sentence, much less another language.

Luckily, Charles had served with the captain long enough to pick up some of his first language. His face warped from one of calm to that of fearful duty, and he dashed over to the armored officer.

"Lucy, we need your magic!" he called to the blonde, who was already trying to avoid the hot spots, grabbing her arm when she came in range, "Now, I need you to channel your magic to me. Don't ask why, just do it," the Sergeant continued, laying his hand on the other man's exposed neck. "Magic Transfer; Activate!" Charles shouted, and a golden glow seemed to travel from Lucy, through him, and into the scarred man.

The holes in the shield began to close, and no more particulates made it through. All three mages were sweating heavily.

The glowing golden sphere knit itself back together, and the temperature stopped rising.

Then Lucy lost consciousness from the intense rate her remaining magic was consumed, and toppled to the deck.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Hargeon

 _BOOOOM!_

The thunderous eruption of Mount Stoneridge had generated a pressure wave so powerful, it swept over miles and miles of ocean, reaching the Fiorian Mainland only minutes after its creation.

People toppled. Buildings toppled. The train derailed.

And that wasn't even the worst part.

The sea had pulled out from shore, warning of the first volcanic tsunami to make landfall on the small kingdom in hundreds of years.

The wave of explosive sound roared on like a hundred angry dragons, bearing a message of the coast's doom farther inland.

* * *

 **A/N: So, what'd you think? Love it? Loathe it? Tell me what you think!**

 **WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS JUST APPRECIATION FOR THOSE WHO HAVE SHOWN IT. IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT, THERE IS NOTHING ELSE HERE TO READ.**

 **Now, a shoutout to all the readers who have reviewed my story:**

 **To a2jay, xPug99x, whynot3993, and EazyFade: Sorry, but at this stage in planning, Mira isn't the one I have in mind. I may find a way to fix that, though ;)**

 **To rufus264: *evil cackle* We'll see...**

 **To a2jay: It's high time I recognized you for being the first review on my first story. Thank you for the tip(s), and, should you desire it, the position of Beta (of the pack/reader) is yours.**

 **To REiNozomi and Puck100: Thanks for the support!**

 **Here, I shall notarize all the members of the TurboPack, in hierarchical order:**

 **Alpha: Me, the TurboWolf**

 **Beta: (who didn't accept it) a2jay**

 **Gammas: Puck100 & ****EazyFade**

 **Deltas: xPug99x, whynot3993, & REiNozomi**

 **Thetas: KuramaDragneel, lazyfujoshi, TenIsTheNumber, ZKARYX, BiggerOnDaInside, DaedricSlayer1337 & LC03**

 **Since real wolf packs aren't very large, these are the current members of the TurboPack, my exclusive Pack of Honor. If you want to join, drop a helpful review.**


	7. Oh thank Heaven, It's chapter Seven!

**A/N: Hiya, readers! I'm back from scout camp! I caught a virus and am sick, at home, so I decided to (finally) finish this chapter. I also found my old, white Toshiba 16 gigabyte flashdrive, so I can once again work at multiple computers. However, it is now falling apart and will have to be replaced soon. I also downloaded the Grammarly Chrome attachment, which should help me root out those pesky errors**

 **For those of you who are interested in yours truly, I went to two successive week-long BSA summer camps, where I was acting ASPL and then acting SPL because I was the oldest scout, our current SPL went to neither, and our current ASPL only went to the first camp. I completed multiple merit badges, and we won Honor Troor* and the Scout Skills competition at Seminole, then won literally every award given out at Yocona, despite being the second smallest group there, at only 8 scouts.**

 **School started, and with it (one of) my high school's hardest courses—AP Euro. If you've never taken Coach Adair's APEH class, you're thinking "It can't be that bad," just like I stupidly did after taking AP Human last year. Between that, English, and Cross Country, I consistently stay up until midnight working. I'm managing to maintain a B+, so that's good (and tiring). I also really need more sleep. Even without writing this story, something needs to go to the chopping block, but quitting AP Euro while #3 in the class would be a prestige and Dip. Rep. hit I refuse to take.**

 ***the tree plaque literally read HON TROOR**

 **There will also be a note where the grisly part starts, if you want to skip it. I meant it to be horrifying and sad, so tell me if I over/underdid it. The only new things introduced during the scene are the main pairing (In the part that's meant to be sad! No necrophilia!) and motivation. The main pairing is cleared of ambiguity right after it, though...**

 **I ended up cutting this chapter short anyway because, if a 24-page chapter has MS Word screw itself, Grammarly screws with my formatting and then Fanfiction makes me fix it _again_ , what would a _thirty_ -page chapter do?**

 **DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail. That right belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lucky bastard. I don't make any sort of money off of this, and only own what/who I come up with.**

"This is talking,"

 _'This is thinking,' and special circumstances_

 _Italics*Italics_ =normal

 **This is When Shit's Goin' Down**

* * *

 _Gildarts and Natsu trekked in silence through the cave the train had come from. Eventually, they came to a place where the cave widened into a cavern, and a dilapidated Fairy Tail guildhall sat in the center of it._

 _The hall was plagued with holes— some caused by projectiles, ripping through the wood, while others were the result of magical beams, their small, clean holes carving through the walls. Still more were caused by age, where several sections of the roof had fallen in. The guild banner hung like a drowned rat from one rope, swaying from the loose mooring it still clung to. The whole miserable sight was covered in a layer of mildew, and Natsu could find no familiar scent on the derelict structure._

 _"What happened?" Natsu asked as Gildarts strode towards the run-down bar._

 _"Natsu, this particular building has always been like this. We're in the part of your subconscious where your fears reside—where they seem the most real," the orange-haired man explained, nearing the leaning doorway._

 _"Then why are we here!?" Natsu asked indignantly, more than a little put off at the idea of seeing another train._

 _"Because, kid," Gildarts began, pushing on the left door. With a Snap! the bent frame finally gave out, and both doors fell into the rotting corpse of a hall with a resounding CRASH!, throwing up a cloud of dust. "Those fears are our greatest weapons against that demon of yours."_

 _The dust settled, revealing a series of tipped-table barriers as if people used this building for foxholes, broken by small gaps and the occasional pile of roofing. Gildarts strode off the fallen doors, leaving footprints in the plentiful dust._

 _"But you're the strongest member of Fairy Tail! Can't you stop him?" Natsu asked half-declared, half-begged of the older man._

 _Gildarts stopped, halfway around a particularly large pile of roofing, and sighed, "Natsu, there's something you need to realize about me." The man turned to face the pinkette, solemn expression at full power, before elaborating, "I am a very powerful man, yes, but beneath all the magic and destruction, that is all that I am. A man, and men were never meant to stop engineered killing machines on their own."_

 _The dragonslayer could only gape as if all his dreams had just been shattered on the rocky shores of reality._

 _Nothing was stronger than Gildarts._

 _Nothing._

 _"Don't get me wrong, I'll help in any way I can," The orange-haired one continued, hands splayed in honesty, "But I can't stand up to that… that thing by myself." He raked a hand through his slicked-back hair, before turning on his heel and disappearing behind the shattered shingles and shredded supports._

 _Natsu closed his mouth and followed his role model around the mound of roofing._

 _On the other side, Gildarts was halfway in a trapdoor, holding it open for the pinkette._

 _"C'mon, we don't have all day!" the older man shouted with a grin on his face, before climbing down the ladder. With a moment of hesitation, the dragonslayer stepped into the tunnel that the crash mage had just descended, before climbing down the cold metal rungs too._

 _The trapdoor gave a shrill shriek of protest as gravity pulled it shut._

* * *

 _About thirty feet down the ladder, iron rungs gave way to rough-hewn wood as the cramped stone chute widened into a massive cavern, with the ladder clinging to one wall. A little way after that, the planks grew too wide for the dragonslayer to wrap his hands around, and he kept hitting his knees on the one-by-sixes. The whole way was lit by small glowing mosses that clung to the sheer stone._

 _"Ow!" Natsu yelped when a splinter lodged itself in the heel of his hand._

 _"Careful, kid! It's a long way down!" Gildarts yelled up from somewhere far below._

 _That was when Natsu heard it, faint but unmistakable:_

 _Chugga-chugga Chugga-chugga Chugga-chugga_

 _It seemed the train had come back for a second pass at the dragonslayer, and in doing so, revealed that gravity had switched directions, pulling Natsu toward the ties instead of along the rails. He stood up as the chugging grew louder._

 _The train thundered around a bend into sight, leaning off the left rail._

 _Luckily, E.N.D. had scraped himself off the boiler and wasn't present to hurl surprisingly effective fireballs at the Fairy Tail mages._

 _The locomotive's headlight glared on the dragonslayer like a subterranean star, and all color in his normally tan face fled in terror like a pack of nocturnal rabbits._

 _Steel shrieked as the train slammed back down, drawing a groan of protest from the overburdened rail. Natsu, previously frozen, dashed to his left as steel buckled and the locomotive skipped the tracks. Its cowcatcher lodged in one of the ties, flipping the locomotive through the air like a trebuchet arm, snapping its smokestack and car coupling like twigs. Natsu poured on the speed when earth flew and metal groaned as the train hit the ground and rolled, before finding the tracks once again. When the train landed sideways on the rails, the cars it had been pulling slammed into it. The steam engine skidded along, throwing sparks, flinging gears, and chucking cogs like a five-year-old would confetti. The train slid to where the dragonslayer had been standing just seconds before…_

 _And exploded, not in fire, but in steam. Shards of steel whizzed through the air, followed by a veil of water vapor. Natsu raced on, frantically searching for a place to hide in the surprisingly featureless rock._

 _As if summoned, a gigantic human hand sprouted from a crevasse and grabbed the Dragonslayer by the scarf, eliciting a surprised yelp from the pinkette as it carried him towards its source. That yelp was replaced by a pained hiss when searing shrapnel rent a deep, jagged tear across his right forearm. Other bits of roasted rubble buzzed through the air around the dragonslayer, some nicking him. Natsu closed his eyes in terror, sure that ferrous debris would tear his vital organs to shreds and the cloud of water would boil him alive at any moment._

 _Instead of the scorching pain of steamed bits of track and train piercing his body, the next thing Natsu felt was the rough rock against his face and body as he was pulled through an opening in the wall. His eyes shot open, only to be met by a diminutive balding man in a wizard saint coat as he hit the stone floor. Half a second later, steel and steam screeched and howled against the rock face, seemingly infuriated that the dragonslayer had gotten away and demanded he is handed back for certain death._

 _Natsu covered his ears against the din as the hand gripping his scarf yanked him to his feet. It released the dragonscale cloth, then beckoned deeper into the cleft, as nothing could be heard over the painfully loud, high-pitched cries of steel, steam, and stone._

* * *

 _When the noise from outside the fissure faded to a faint whirr in Natsu's ears, the dragonslayer removed his hands from them. The occasional torch appeared on the gradually more polished and arched tunnel walls._

 _Natsu took this as a cue to ignite his fist and eat the torch fire._

 _Makarov took it as a cue to begin a spiel._

 _"Natsu, that train demonstrated something Gildarts and I have been trying to teach you for years."_

 _"Wha's Thah?" the dragonslayer garbled around his physics-warping mouthful of flame._

 _"That fear is a good thing. It keeps you—"_

 _Natsu choked on the torch handle that had made its way into his indiscriminate maw, cutting off the guild master with gagging as the dragonslayer removed the stick. A shouted interruption came after Natsu could breathe again._

 _"But you're never scared!" Natsu began, voice a mix of confusion and indignation, "How am I supposed to protect my friends when I'm afraid!?"_

 _"What do you mean, I'm never scared?" Makarov snapped back, spinning to face the taller dragonslayer, "Whenever you, or Erza, or Elfman, or Gray, or Laxus, or Gildarts destroy half a town, the Magic Council threatens to take Fairy Tail away from me! Every time one of our members goes on a hard job, I worry way too much!"_

 _Makarov sighed, regaining control, before continuing, "I'm just good at hiding it."_

 _Natsu was silenced by the second worldview-shattering revelation in the past… 10 minutes? .0015 seconds? Eh, who knows._

 _Makarov continued in the ensuing silence, "A little fear is a good thing. It keeps you alert, awake, and alive in dangerous situations. To act without it is stupidity. When you delve into terror, the paralyzing, mind-numbing side of fear, it stops being a good thing. To act in spite of that is courage."_

 _The guild master then rounded a corner off the now well-manicured stone hallway. The new branch somehow sparkled more than the previous tunnel, and a large set of double doors stood at the far end. Two men in robes with an ankh emblazoned on the chest stood at attention on either side, backs as straight as their spear shafts. Wrought-iron braziers on both sides of the protruding arches provided light to see the intricacies of the doors' court carvings until Natsu ate their blazes. Everyone was silent— Natsu was mulling over Makarov's words, the old man was letting him, and it was in the guards' job description._

 _When Master Makarov was about ten feet from the large, masterfully carved double doors, the guards crossed the split blades of their spears and shifted their stern, shaven faces to the approaching mages._

 _"State your business!" the one on the left barked._

 _"He's here to see the Magic Council," Makarov replied, jabbing his thumb towards the pinkette behind him._

 _"C-c-council?" Natsu asked, dropping into a terror-induced stutter as he paled once again._

 _"Something about a trial?" the short man continued for the two guards. As soon as the last word came out of his mouth, the Rune Knights shot into action._

 _The wooden doors opened, blinding Natsu with the high-quality light, as cuffs slapped around his wrists and ankles. Strong hands gripped his upper arms and lifted him up, before throwing him into the next room. The doors closed behind the pinkette dragonslayer with an audible thunk as he unsuccessfully tried to clamber to his feet. After about thirty seconds of undignified scrambling, a guard on the new side of the doors walked over and helped Natsu to his feet._

 _Standing up, the dragonslayer could see that seating took up the half of the room closest to the doors, split by a central aisle. A short wooden barrier stood at the far end of the seating, with a small gate where the aisle was, separating it from a mostly-open space with two desks. Behind the one on the right sat a thin man in a fancy—definitely expensive—tailored suit with a mountain of documents in front of him. The left desk was bare, with only one chair behind it. At the far end of the open space was a tall wooden barrier that the Magic Council sat behind, seated for a tribunal. Natsu, despite his enhanced vision and the bright lighting, could make out nothing of the members more detailed than a shadowy silhouette. A small door stood to the right (Natsu's left) and behind the raised shadowy seating._

 _"Have a seat, Mr. Dragneel," a voice called from the councilors' seats. It was strange, almost garbled, like a mix of all the council members' voices Natsu had ever heard, yet it wasn't. Natsu quietly shuffled down the aisle, unsure in the detached environment, behind the guard who helped him up, before sitting down in the lone seat at the left desk._

 _"All rise," the ambiguous voice called. It tickled the dragonslayer's senses in all the wrong ways, compounded by the lack of emotion. Both seated people stood._

 _The sound of paper shuffling filled the otherwise silent room as the council searched for something._

 _Having found the something, the unnerving mechanical paradox of voices calmly spoke again, "Natsu Dragneel, you stand accused of 17 counts of Theft, 35 counts of Vandalism, 42 counts of Assault, 300 counts of Robbery, 7,512 counts of Arson, 81,586 counts of Manslaughter, 8,609 counts of Extortion, 94,374 counts of Accessory to Murder, one count of Attempted Murder, 46,253 counts of Murder, 85 counts of Domestic Terrorism, seven counts of High Treason, and 1,029,756 counts of Genocide."_

 _The voice paused as if trying to create dramatic tension._

 _Natsu could only gape at the delusional list of accusations._

 _"How do you plea?" the voice asked, still as cold and robotic as the first demand. However, Natsu's R.A.M. was consumed by , so the popup was unable to be displayed._

 _"Mr. Dragneel!" the voice shouted for the fifteenth time. I don't know if it was the barest hint of anger in the mishmash of voices or the fact that it was the fifteenth shout that did it, but the unresponsive pinkette suddenly rebooted from his absurdity-induced crash. Still coming out from under the effects of his stupor, Natsu moved his mouth, as if trying to summon words, but none came._

 _"Guilty, or Not Guilty," the nebulous councilors supplied._

 _"I-I didn't do those things," Natsu whispered, wide-eyed as the weight of the situation slowly cracked its way through his thick skull. They were SERIOUS._

 _"Not Guilty it is then," the warped voices of a prestigious crowd stated, one of their number faintly relieved, before continuing, emotionless again, "The Prosecution may begin opening statements."_

 _The thin man in an expensive suit stood up from behind the mountain of papers obscuring his face, before lifting a foothill of files and advancing towards the council's seats._

 _"Men and women of the council, in this trial, I seek to prove that the accused did, in fact, release the Demon of Zeref known as E.N.D., and proceeded to go on a genocidal rampage. In this rampage were actions such as burning Magnolia, Crocus, Hargeon, and 85% of all structures in Fiore—along with their populations—to the ground, the incineration of 67 battalions of the Fiorian Royal Army, murdering the Royal Families of Fiore and neighboring Bosco, attempted usurpation of the dead monarchs' thrones, allowing the Alvarez Empire to invade unhindered by our remaining military units, a systematic culling of humans, and causing general chaos and damage totaling no less than 80,000,000 spools of woolen thread, since that is how the government has paid people since the collapse of the Fiorian Jewel, Boscan Standard Piece, and straight nails, all of which can be attributed to the fire demon. This is supported by piles of irrefutable physical evidence, as you can see," The thin man asserted, before stopping for a breather as he put the 5-inch tall file foothill atop the councilors' raised wooden desk/barrier. "And, for the record," the suited man added, "I believe that the lack of eyewitness testimony speaks for itself." With that, he turned around and strode back to his seat behind a plateau of papers._

 _Natsu started to panic._

* * *

 _'Oh shit, this isn't good. I thought that we sealed that demon away forever.'_

 _That is what went through the great red dragon's mind as he flew through the rocky area he had erected in that of his adopted son. He flew low, almost striking the rocks with his wings on every thunderous beat. His sharp eyes scanned the barren landscape of solid and molten rock as he whizzed past its stark outcroppings and lava flows, looking for something._

 _He found it— a hole in the ground with gouges carved deep into its yawning mouth, as if something big had been forced down it, or maybe clawed its way up._

 _Not stopping to think of the latter possibility, the red drake dove into the massive hole, headed to employ his contingency plan._

 _Five seconds after the beginning of the dive, the dragon spread his wings as far as the pit allowed and flipped tail-down to dig his claws into the igneous rock. Like nails on a chalkboard, a horrid screech split the volcanic atmosphere as friction slowly overcame gravity and momentum._

 _He came to a stop about thirty feet from the bottom of the chasm. A stream of magma bubbled out of the rock on his right, inching a channel through the floor's carpet of ash into a cavern opposite the red reptilian form. A lone orchid grew surprisingly close to the molten rock, its single white flower wilted despite the nutritious volcanic soil. The dragon detached himself from the wall's newest gashes and followed the luminous bayou, careful not to disturb the flower that was dangerously close to it._

 _He was not careful enough._

 _The once-beautiful flower moved in the wake of the dragon's tail, and all eight tons of flying red reptile froze, eyes on the limply swaying flower._

 _It leaned left._

 _It leaned right._

 _A growl echoed from within the cave, conveying every emotion from indignation to undying hatred._

 _The flower leaned towards the molten rock, thin trails of steam leaving its drooping petals._

 _Something struck metal, filling the cavern with a sharp Dunk!, followed by the rattling of chains._

 _The flower leaned left again and stopped._

 _An apathetic snort came from deep within the cave, and the chains slowly faded into silence._

 _The dragon took it as a cue to start moving again, paying close attention to his tail._

* * *

 _"We have heard enough," the strange agglomeration of councilors' voices began, "And have reached our verdict. This court hereby finds the defendant, Natsu Dragneel, guilty of all charges."_

 _Natsu tried his magic for the hundredth time, only for the cuffs he was wearing to negate it again. The strange voice continued, oblivious._

 _"We hereby sentence Mr. Dragneel to death by hanging. Guards, take him away!"_

 _Their declaration was enough to get the adrenaline flowing through the dragonslayer's veins._

 _The Rune Knight that hadn't left the side of the desk went to grab the pinkette._

 _However, Natsu stood up before he could and snapped his shackles, sending splinters of enchanted steel throughout the room, before dashing for the small door at its back. More guards crawled out from under every board he stepped on, like a horde of cockroaches. They filled the room from every conceivable entrance, forming a shifting mass of blue and white robes, all grabbing at the convict. Natsu flung his freshly freed fists of fire at those who got too close._

 _The son of Igneel reached the small wooden door and flung it open to reveal a barren stone cave on the other side. Not having a moment to think, Natsu continued his escape run out of court and slammed the door behind him._

 _An arm was wedged between the door and its frame, but another harsh slam solved that problem. The door closed, cutting off both light and sound from the courtroom and plunging Natsu into total darkness._

* * *

 _The great red dragon stood in front of a metal cage, with bars three feet thick separating its lone occupant from the outside world, along with a multitude of ultra-duty padlocks and even heavier-duty chains. The occupant was also a dragon, but it was significantly smaller than the one outside— a sign of its youth—and its scales were deathly pale in comparison to the elder's lustrous mahogany. This could be due to its lack of sunlight and lava baths, or maybe its scales were naturally pale._

 _Another possible cause could be its moping, as a dragon's hide tends to reflect its long-term mental state. Like a cat's fur, dragon scales require periodic attention to retain their lustrous gleam and vibrant color. It didn't move, its eyes on the wilted orchid that grew too close to the molten rock for comfort._

 _The free dragon advanced upon the cage and produced a ring of keys, varying from thick, cast iron skeleton keys to intricately carved anthracite and from ancient-looking, rust-covered iron to brand-new, sharply-cut bronze._

 _The pale one didn't look up._

 _The dark red dragon reached for the lightest lock and inserted an iron key that gleamed wherever it wasn't rusted. With a groan and a click, the bar opened and a single chain came loose._

 _The pale one spared a glance at the wall of chains, which looked no different, before turning back to the orchid._

 _The scaled foreclaw reached for another, thicker padlock—this time a combination lock— and began to spin it. After six directional spin changes, it joined the first padlock on the ground, and a second chain came with it._

 _One by one, the pile of chains and locks grew at the red drake's feet. It began to spill into the lava stream when only two locks remained— the strongest padlock and that of the cage itself._

 _The dragon with pallid scales looked up at the one with vivid colors, emotions making its previously blank gaze forceful. The elder stumbled back as if struck by the strength of a dragon's emotions—_

 _Fury and a need for revenge._

 _As soon as it appeared, the pale dragon rolled over and kept moping, any trace of its hatred gone._

 _The great red dragon turned and left, clawing his way back up the volcanic chasm with a little less confidence than what he came with._

* * *

 _Natsu set out into the darkness, one fist afire in front of him. He had been walking for a few minutes now if time flowed the same way in his skull as it did in Earthland._

 _The dragonslayer heard something move in the darkness beyond his fist fire, and his eyes darted towards the noise. His nose caught a whiff of a scent that a neuron deep in his brain claimed was familiar, but he couldn't figure out where from._

 _Turning up his magical light, Natsu headed further into the darkness, towards the scent. At the very edge of his vision, the dragonslayer saw a familiar shape— a human arm, beckoning him forward._

 _Not one to ignore his curiosity, the pinkette ran after it. When the edge of his flickering ring of light was about to touch the figure, it turned and dashed farther into the darkness, always staying in the shadows. However, Natsu's superior vision allowed him to make out a few things about the strange figure, like the broad shoulders and short, pink hair of a man. He also smelled distant strawberry cake._

 _Wait. Pink? That raised the tally to three, and it was climbing surprisingly fast after the fiasco with Duke Everlue._

 _Natsu's contemplation was interrupted when he ran into the man he had been chasing. Surprised, his flaming fist went out, allowing a lone wall-mounted torch to light the small chamber he found himself in._

 _Hands rested on the dragonslayer's shoulders and pushed him back above his own feet, allowing the pinkettes to get a good look at one another. The man was a good inch or two taller than Natsu, with hair the same shade as his—salmon. His face was rounded where the fire mage was angular, and the only differences in his smile were the pride in his eyes and normal-sized canines in his jaw._

 _The pride irked the same part of Natsu's brain that the familiar-yet-not smell did. It reminded the dragonslayer of Macao, and—not himself—Romeo. The older pyromancer often gave his son—_

 _It made sense. He knew where that scent was familiar from._

 _Beneath the smells of flame and Fairy Tail, of ash and adopted family, he found the barest traces._

 _He smelled like this man._

 _The elder pinkette's proud visage shifted to a knowing smile as realization washed across the dragonslayer's face. He took his right arm off Natsu's shoulder to gesture to the right of the lone torch, where a thick steel door was inset. His left hand kept its grip, guiding Natsu to follow as he walked towards it._

 _The metal door looked like a combination of a bank vault and a ship's door. A wheel locking mechanism was bolted to its front, six metal bars jutting into the doorframe to keep the thick-looking slab of steel secured in place. A small porthole was just above it, showing a dismal rocky blackness. The torchlight laid across two outward bulges in the door, as if whatever was in there had tried to knock it down. The cake was on a pedestal towards the middle of the room, directly in front of the hatch._

 _A loud thump filled the cavern as another bulge appeared in the door._

 _The force of the impact shook pebbles from the roof, and Natsu turned to ask the man what was on the other side, "Da—?" The word died in his mouth as the dragonslayer turned to find no hide nor hair nor scent of his fellow pinkette._

 _Another loud thump drew Natsu's attention back to the steel hatch, where the three bumps had joined into a large outward warp. As a result, the right side of the door no longer touched its frame._

 _Natsu lit his fists, preparing for a fight._

 _The door was struck again, and the iron rent. A hand in jet black armor reached through, followed by a grey iron vambrace with thick, black spikes as it reached up towards the wheel._

 _Natsu moved into position._

 _The black gauntlet grabbed the wheel lock and pulled. After a second of resistance, it spun, squeaking in protest as the six steel bars were pulled out of their slots in the frame. It let go and made its way back through the hole in the door._

 _"Fire Dragon Talon!" Natsu shouted, performing a rocket-powered fiery cartwheel kick into the unlocked door. The hinges busted, sending the wheel-lock door and whatever stood on the other side of it across the new chamber of night black rock. The dragonslayer's fire provided the only light, glaring harshly off the jagged walls and similarly-spiked form under the two-inch-thick steel door._

 _The pinkette leaped forward, spiky floor digging into his sandals as he pushed off the ground. The door that he aimed for shifted, before being violently flung into a nearby wall. Natsu's leap turned into a dive at his armored opponent, one fist pulled back to strike._

 _His opponent had other plans. In a blur of black, they moved to the side and slung an armored fist at the dragonslayer as he passed, sending him careening into a wall._

 _Natsu rose, minor cuts all over the front half of his body. He shook the black dust out of his hair and looked up at the advancing figure in spiked armor. More particularly, at the long, red hair that belonged to his most violent guildmate._

 _Utter terror warped his face into something reminiscent of a talking blue cat._

 _Another night-black gauntlet decked the pinkette._

 _"NATSU!" she bellowed, hefting her imposing mace above her head._

 _Natsu was frozen with a broken nose as Erza Scarlet in her most petrifying armor towered over him._

 _The enraged one._

 _"GIVE ME MY CAKE!" she roared, bringing her mace down for a splitting strike._

 _Not a fan of death, the small part of Natsu's consciousness that wasn't swamped in fear decided to roll away and try to run. He wasn't fast enough, as the mace snagged his scarf on its way deep into the stone. This stopped his flight much the same as a clothesline, stopping his neck and letting his body spin around that fulcrum. Natsu struggled with the life-saving gift that was now contributing to his untimely death as Erza worked to free her mace._

 _Realizing her advantage, the 'Queen of the Fairies' forwent the stuck mace for armored limbs and a trapped dragon. Her scary form advanced on the choking pinkette, and she delivered a savage kick to his midsection, forcing any air in his lungs up through his constricted neck._

 _Her kick had the secondary effect of moving the bleeding dragonslayer closer to the massive mace, granting his scarf a little give that his hands quickly found._

 _Erza drew back for another kick as Natsu unwrapped the scarf from his neck. She struck, hitting the pinkette's side as he rolled away, adding more torque to his spin. The glancing blow offered less resistance than the redhead expected, unbalancing her and sending her to the ground._

 _Natsu's boosted torque sent him up the spiky wall, and he met the ceiling as Erza's fall shook the floor. Seeking to take full advantage of his altitude, Natsu fired up his foot thrusters to drop onto the recovering requip mage._

 _"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" the dragonslayer shouted, aiming for the least protected part of his opponent—her head._

 _His fiery fist met her face with all his force behind it, generating soot and sand from the explosive and concussive forces._

 _Natsu took the dust cloud as an opportunity to set his nose back into the proper shape, which he had learned how to do after his first fight with Gray. He winced at the pain and dropped into a defensive stance, searching for the sounds of his opponent since his other options weren't available._

 _"Requip: Flame Empress!" the warrior shouted, giving away her present location in the dust._

 _The dragonslayer sprung, tracking the clanking of plate and scratching of its claws on the stone._

 _Erza was prepared. When the pink of his hair entered her vision, she slashed with her stylized sword, sending the pinkette flying._

 _Not stopping to wonder why her blades never drew blood, the requip mage strode towards the dazed dragonslayer._

 _Black iron met skin when Erza slugged the downed fire mage, embedding his skull deeper into the rock. A pained groan broke the silence, which was rewarded with another heavy-handed blow and Erza's speech._

 _"DON'T!" A punch._

 _"TOUCH!" Another punch._

 _"MY CAKE!" Erza thundered, laying into the limp pinkette again and again and again, each blow with more force than the last._

 _The armored mage rose when her opponent was sufficiently pulped and calmly walked to the opening. The only indication she gave of having fought was the blood dripping off her clawed gauntlets._

* * *

 _" **Come on, Natsu,** " a voice growled deep within the dragonslayer's mind " **Get up!** "_

 _Natsu recognized his surrogate father at once. "Igneel?" he mumbled through the blood dripping down his face as his vision slowly shifted from nothing to blurry mahogany and beige._

 _" **I know you can do better, Natsu.** "_

 _"But no man can beat Erza!" the pinkette internally spluttered. The dragon before him drifted in and out of focus._

 _" **Do not forget who you are, Natsu Dragneel,** " Igneel rumbled, " **You are more than just any man. You are my son, Heir of the Fire Dragons, and Fairy Tail's infamous Salamander. Fire itself bends to your will. Who can stop you?** "_

 _"E-Erza?" the dragonslayer supplied, "The Master?"_

 _" **No, son. You stop yourself. Your fear of hurting friends keeps you from surpassing them! How can you improve if you put others' opinions above your proficiency!?** " the red one boomed. The dragon paused, letting Natsu think, before cutting deeper. " **How can you protect what is yours when you don't improve?** " he asked, deathly quiet._

 _Natsu was silent._

 _ **"You need to be strong without assistance,"** the great dragon said, the gravity in his tone growing as he spoke, **"to wield the power to defend alone, for that is exactly how you will face your greatest foe."**_

 _With that, the dragonslayer's vision became unfocused again and slowly faded back to darkness._

* * *

 _When the pinkette's vision returned to him, he was in the same black-spiked chamber as he had been when Erza beat him. One sniff told him that Erza was gone, and a human that smelled like nothing he knew stood outside the doorway. He rose shakily, before stumbling across the chamber and tripping and falling out of the doorway._

 _"You're a little more out of it than normal, aren't you?" an unfamiliar voice drawled to the dragonslayer's left. Natsu climbed to his feet and turned to the stranger. He was a little shorter than the pinkette, with short dark-brown hair and a patchy shave. In his hands was a thick book Natsu couldn't read, for it was in a different language, and a granola bar. He wore a thin crimson jacket, unzipped, over an even thinner green shirt, which had a mountain and more words Natsu couldn't read on it, a pair of khaki cargo shorts with bulging pockets, and a worn pair of dusty, once-gray tennis shoes._

 _"Who the hell are you? And how did you get here?" the dragonslayer asked._

 _The stranger cracked a smile and chomped his granola bar. "Who I am doesn't matter. What does is what I've come here to show you, Natsu Dragneel, and the truths that you'll soon learn," He lectured around the chunk of his food._

 _"Will it help me defeat Erza!?" the dragonslayer asked, all suspicions gone._

 _The stranger blinked at the pinkette, a little miffed, before rubbing his stubbly chin with the granola bar and frowning. "It isn't meant to help defeat Miss Scarlet specifically, but you should start beating higher-tier enemies afterward, so…" he trailed off, shrugging, "Yeah, I guess."_

 _With that, the stranger turned and marched off into the stone warren. Natsu stumbled erratically after him, shaking off a concussion._

* * *

 _It was not long before the duo entered a gigantic cavern. Approximately 100 feet away from the tunnel mouth stood the Fairy Tail guildhall, nestled in the gap between two large boulders. The squat wooden bar proudly flew Fairy Tail banners, and a stretch of Magnolia roadway extended from the entryway. The great doors stood upright, not having had their weekly kick._

 _"Now Natsu," the stranger began, "Even though it looks normal, we have only ventured deep— where'd 'e go?" he asked, turning around to find that Natsu was no longer following him._

 _The dragonslayer stood at the guildhall doors, grinning from ear to ear as he instinctively thought of what he would do if Gray was inside (and Erza was not)._ Probably deck the ice prick until he admits I am the superior mage _, Natsu thought, picturing the ice mage crying "Uncle" in a headlock. His smirk somehow got even bigger. Natsu reared back for his signature kicking entrance._

 _"Wait!" the poorly-shaven stranger yelled, but he was too late. Natsu's foot swung forwards, and the doors swung open._

* * *

 **[A/N: Readers beware. I intentionally made this horrific, and my own stomach is still turning. I recommend you scroll down to the next Author's Note if you consider yourself "squeamish". You can't miss it. Consider yourselves warned.]**

* * *

 _Natsu did see Gray, but it was grueling to discern the ice mage from the pile of disemboweled, mutilated corpses which he lay in, a pool of fly-dotted blood surrounding the macabre ziggurat. The shocking, sickly-sweet stench of decay struck Natsu, its truck-like impact magnified by his draconic senses._

 _Natsu felt gore-soaked wooden planks hit his knees, but did not register falling. He heard the great wooden doors close behind him with a resounding boom, but did not remember leaving their path. His eyes looked away from the ghastly corpses, only to find another gruesome curiosity. The battle-scarred, burgundy-scaled head of a dragon leaned against a wall, its skull caved in and cranial fluids leaking out to join the pool of blood and gore that leaked from its severed neck. The scars were familiar to Natsu. Too familiar._

 _With a start, Natsu realized that it was Igneel's head he was looking at, and his stomach rebelled. Acid burned the pinkette's throat as his lunch escaped into the revolting mix already soaking into the floor._

 _Everywhere Natsu looked, a new carcass laid in an ever-growing pool of blood. His entire guild, dead and dismembered, maggot-eaten and scavenged upon, and there was not a single thing he could do about it._

 _Lucy, head lopped off and missing, twitching as her own blood coagulated around her exposed vertebrae. He didn't want to know._

 _Erza, hung up in a corner with her skin flayed from her body. Blood soaked the floor surrounding her as, one by one, her dead muscles visibly snapped._

 _Macao, in gristly chunks here, and there, and there, and there. And there._

 _Laxus, a broken-boned blob leaned against the upper-floor railing._

 _Elfman, hacked to pieces on the counter, his bones snapped to match the flesh._

 _Gildarts, squashed flat, missing an arm and a leg, in a pool of bone shards and blood. Bites had been taken out of him._

 _The list went on, from impaled on a table to half of a head._

 _As the dragonslayer's eyes roamed the corrupted guildhall, finding everyone he knew, his body stayed rooted to the spot next to his own vomit, as if paralyzed._

 _Natsu's eyes found snow-white hair in a bob cut, framing a pale, unblemished face in the back of the hall. His eyes widened._

 _"No," the pinkette whispered. As if freed from a trance, he unsteadily rose to his feet. His sandaled feet stood in blood, gore, and vomit, but he either did not notice or did not care._

 _"_ No _," Natsu demanded, taking slow, unbelieving steps through the gruesome spectacle._

 _" **No!** " the dragonslayer snarled, his eyes thinning to furious slits when he registered that the beautiful blue eyes that should be in her face were gone. Claw marks ripped across her chest, her legs, her arms, her neck, ripping skin and muscle and exposing the bone. Empty sockets stared back at him, and a broken jaw hung from her skull. Bruises covered everything on her that was not sliced, save her face, as if reminding him of the beauty ripped from his life. Her thighs were further stained a mix of red and white with the scent of male, and Natsu knew that she'd been raped._

* * *

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* * *

 _Natsu reached the girl's corpse, and he could do nothing but seethe in impotent rage, for someone—_

 _—No—_

 _—some_ thing _—_

 _Had done this to her._

 _To Lisanna._

 _To HIS Lisanna._

 _Natsu ignited, twitching like a madman, and the dragonslayer released a furious howl—_

 _—Nay, a roar—_

 _—of pain and fiery wrath fit to make Earth shake and Death run._

 _The flames raged around him, pulsing and ebbing, consuming everything in their growing grasp. The fires expressed the burning, murderous, undying hatred unique to young men and dragons far better than any sapient being could. They were not Natsu's usual flames, however, for they burned hotter, but not brighter, black instead of red-orange, and lent none of a fire's homely comfort. The only things offered by this inferno were ruin, retribution, and the cold embrace of death._

 _Natsu's Flames of Emotion had discovered his Wrath._

 _The black blaze grew, consuming the bodies and the desecrated guildhall. The supports buckled and the roof came down, but everything burned before it hit the ground._

* * *

 _The dragonslayer's flames sizzled and popped around him as they slowly died. Natsu clung to a blackened skeleton, which was warped and melted by the dark conflagration. His shoulders shook as he sobbed into it, but his tears evaporated as soon as they formed. His hair hung as limply as his shoulders, and he seemed to have aged 80 years._

 _Ashes crunched underfoot as the stranger walked toward Natsu, his green eyes scanning the area for any piece of wood that was not on fire. Finding none, he came to a stop thirty feet from the pinkette, wincing at the heat that radiated from Natsu's fire. "Do you understand what truly terrifies you now?" the stranger asked._

 _Natsu looked up, hearing him even though it was just a whisper, and nodded yes. "I will never be helpless again," he vowed, and a new fire of determination appeared in his eyes._

 _"Good," the stranger replied, "Do as Igneel says but do not just increase your power—master it. If you don't, use of those flames will kill everyone you hold dear. For now, though, you have a battle to win." With that, the stranger snapped his fingers._

 _"Wh—" Natsu asked confusedly as he disappeared with an audible pop. Lisanna's skeleton fell, settling in a bed of ashes._

* * *

 **So, what'd you think? Love it? Loathe it? Do I not need a beta as much as I think I do? Did I go overboard on the deathly details? Not Enough? Review to let me know!**

 **And remember, to this Fanfiction author, there are ONLY TWO earthly delights better than Dr. Pepper: Barq's Root Beer and REVIEWS!?**

 **11/25/18: I only got back around to this after Thanksgiving, but you guys' support (*cough hack* reviews, faves, and follows *cough cough* nudge) helps me keep cranking things out, and the praise is well recieved, with a grain of salt, mind you, because I wouldn't describe my writing as fantastic. The TurboPack, my officially unofficial (Can I trademark that?) honor society, is being relocated to my profile.**

 **12/15/18: Nevermind. The officially unofficial** ™ **TurboPack will be continued in the ending Author's Note of my primary story. I also posted a new poll on my profile to help me figure out exactly what I should do with my OC. But first, review replies!**

 **To Moshiyari: I have plans for her...**

 **To assorted guest reviewers: I put up a pairing poll, but I've taken it down now. I don't know if you've voted in it, but I must assume you have. Please stop leaving reviews of who you voted for, as I cannot take such reviews into account when I have a poll set up. I don't plan on making a harem story.**

 **Without further ado, I give you the December 2018 pack:**

 **Myself, the one and only TurboWolf**

 **Puck100**

 **EazyFade**

 **xPug99x, whynot3993, REiNozomi, txenpai, Moshiyari, , ZKARYX, BiggerOnDaInside, DaedricSlayer1337, ZebraLord23, EarthDragonArnighte, and OpSmile**

 **I made an excel spreadsheet to figure this out, and have graphed the emotional support of my reviewers. Maximum membership is 15. [*cracks whip* Appreciate me more, slaves!]**


	8. Arc 1 Climax

**A/N: So, I'm starting writing this chapter a day after my birthday, eating beans and saltines and hoping that I don't throw up, because that is the most notable thing I did on December 27** **th** **, besides binge watching some D &D videos on Youtube. I got around to watching more of the official dub of Fairy Tail as a refresher for characterization.**

 **What? I've accepted that I'm an Ultranerd, even if my mother won't let me.**

 **I really need to stop updating at midnight...**

 **1/8/19: TurboPack and Disclaimer added!**

 **Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail. That right belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lucky bastard. I don't make any sort of money off of this, and only own what/who I come up with.**

 **Anyway, a Merry Belated Christmas to all y'all, thanks for sticking with me, and a belated Happy New Year!**

* * *

 **A Battle for Life and Liberty, or  
Perfectly Balanced, as all things should be.**

"— _at?" Natsu asked confusedly as he appeared with an audible pop. He fell a foot onto the hard, gray stone in a new mental tunnel. The walls were wide, around six feet, with perhaps a twelve-foot ceiling, covered in a faint grid of grooves—similar to mortar between bricks. Flickering orange light trickled in around a bend in the cave, while the other direction faded into darkness._

" _GIVE HER BACK!" the dragonslayer yelled, jumping to his feet and threatening the roof. "I'M GONNA FIND YOU AND BEAT YOU TO A PULP IF YOU DON'T GIVE LISANNA BACK THIS INSTANT! NO TELEPHONE AVIATION IS GONNA SAVE YOU FROM ME, YA HEAR!?"_

" _It's 'teleportation', Natsu," the stranger's voice drawled an unexpected reply from the roof, "And it isn't wise to threaten those who can unmake you."_

" _What the heck? Natsu asked, scenting the air to find the stranger. From one direction, he smelled nothing but the cool, musty air of a dank, dark cave and heard the faint sound of footsteps, while in the other he smelled the smoke of a fire and the bloody scent of fresh meat. He also heard the crackle of a fire and the sound of breathing. "Where'd you go?" he asked the stranger, but got no reply._

 _Of course, he went towards the fire._

 _Upon rounding the bend in the cave, Natsu stumbled across what I can only describe as a massive throne room, easily sixty feet in diameter. A teepee fire burned brightly one-third of the way from the entrance to the center of the room, illuminating most of the chamber with a fickle light and leaving the rest in inky blackness. A floor of burnished jasper gleamed in the firelight, as did the circular walls where tapestries and wooden crates did not cast their shadows. A marble dais stepped up in the center of the room, inlaid with veins of gold and platinum._

 _In the very center of that platform, ringed by a palisade of pikes, stood a throne made of polished skulls. Blackened wood filled the gaps between gleaming white heads, and the back of the chair rose up like a roaring flame in shades of blue, yellow, and orange._

 _In the skull throne, lounged across the armrests like a malicious cat, laid E.N.D. He had apparently remastered his anger, as his irises were onyx again and his radiant heat had not ignited the wood in his throne._

" _ **You came back,"**_ _smirked the demon,_ _ **"Not your brightest moment, but you never were known for those."**_

" _Wha— bu— how?" a flabbergasted Natsu sputtered._

" _ **We are one again, so I have all the memories of you at my helm, conscience,"**_ _the horned one explained, shifting to sit in his throne instead of across it._ _ **"Have you accepted your fate and come to relinquish control peacefully?"**_

" _Control of what?" Natsu asked, no less confused._

 _Natsu's_ _doppelgänger stared at him for ten long seconds, mouth agape and one eye scrunched in confusion._ _ **"I'm going to take far more joy in beating the stupid out of my own head than I anticipated,"**_ _E.N.D. sighed, before picking up his spear, spreading his wings, and lifting off of his skull throne._

 _In three flaps the fiend was hovering just below the chamber's domed stone ceiling and chucked his spontoon at the dragonslayer like a javelin. It flew through the air, stylized secondary blades maintaining its course towards Natsu, who tucked and rolled away. The blade struck the red stone floor with a clang, bouncing and coming to rest on the floor._

 _Natsu rushed over and lifted the burning metal haft with a triumphant cry of "Who were you saying was stupid? I've got the spear now, you winged freak!"_

" _ **You,"**_ _the demon replied, sucker punching Natsu from a dive. The dragonslayer fell to the ground as E.N.D. pulled up, tucked in his wings, and landed on his feet. Seeking to recover an advantage, Natsu swung the spear-shaped abomination of fire and steel up towards its owner's abdomen._

 _E.N.D. raised an eyebrow as his spear swung towards him and, to Natsu's surprise, it flashed into a line of blue flames, which sputtered and died before meeting the demon's skin. "What?" the dragonslayer exclaimed in shock, looking from his empty hands to the demon standing above him with an ever-growing sneer._

 _Just when Natsu doubted it could get any worse, it did. Tartarean blue flames danced in the horned one's hand, roaring outwards into a straight line before it coalesced into the impossible agglomeration of fire and steel that was his spontoon. The demon hefted his reformed spear, pointing it at Natsu's chest, before plunging downward._

 _Natsu fired up his thrusters to get away, but it was too little, too late. He closed his eyes._

 _Steel rang against steel, and Natsu didn't feel any puncture wound, so he opened his eyes, only to find—_

" _Erza!?" the dragonslayer questioned disbelievingly of the redhead standing before him, wielding a pronged kama-yari* and wearing her giant armor. Her spear was locked with the demon's, trembling as she visibly struggled to keep his spontoon from meeting the floor._

" _Punch," Erza growled through gritted teeth, "him."_

 _Natsu chose not to question her and quickly followed this order, climbing to his feet and delivering a sharp cross to his_ _doppelgänger_ _'s cheek with a flaming fist. While it did little more than move the demon's head, it provided enough of a distraction for Erza to break the spear lock and requip into her Heaven's Wheel armor, a sword in each hand._

 _E.N.D.'s smirk shrunk, but it did not wholly vanish, maintaining his air of justified confidence. However, if one looked closely, they could see the fires of fury in his eyes that betrayed his true feelings about this intrusion._ _ **"You're going to regret this, Dragneel,"**_ _he crooned, igniting his empty hand._

" _No, he won't," came a new voice as a man with slicked-back orange hair and a tattered black cloak strode into the room, drawing the attention of the fighting trio._

" _ **And who are you?"**_ _the demon asked, annoyance leaking into his tone._

" _My friends call me Gildarts, but you can call me Mr. Clive," the man answered, marching towards the throne in the center of the room. "Y'know, this is a nice place you've got here," he continued, "It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it."_

" _ **I agree,"**_ _the demon replied,_ _ **"My favorite feature is the blood moat."**_

 _Gildarts shot E.N.D. a confused look as the demon snapped his fingers. Immediately the marble beneath Gildarts's feet disappeared under the first step of the dais, dumping the crash mage into a sticky red sludge of coagulating blood._

 _Two pillars of blue flame erupted, one concealing the tattooed pinkette while the other appeared next to the flailing Gildarts. They died away as quickly as they had appeared, revealing that E.N.D. had teleported to his downed opponent. He put one foot on the crash mage's head, forcing him deeper into the red liquid._ _ **"Stay there,"**_ _he snarled,_ _ **"You'll ruin my floor."**_

 _Natsu and Erza charged as Gildarts failed to stay afloat, covering the distance in seconds. Natsu planted his left foot to bring his right around in a scorching spin kick, while Erza implemented a similar strategy, jumping and spinning to bring both blades down on her foe at once._

 _In the split second, before the mages' attacks struck him, the demon cocked his head to the side, as if in thought. Apparently having made a decision, he flared his batlike wings and launched himself skyward with one mighty flap._

 _Natsu and Erza, too far into their attacks to change course, struck each other instead of their intended target. Erza found herself spinning through the air while Natsu slammed into the red jasper floor, cracking the stone around him._

 _The demon flapped behind Erza before she could stabilize, spiking her into the floor like an armored volleyball. He managed to soar back to Gildarts as the man lifted his head out of the blood, shoving him back under and turning his gasp of air into a lungful of the crimson mire._

 _The Fairy Tail mages on the floor groaned, peeling themselves out of the craters their tumbles had made in the rock. "That hurt," Natsu griped, rubbing his head with both hands. "HEY ERZA!" he shouted, "WHY YA GOTTA HIT ME ALL THE TIME, HUH? WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE BEATING HIM!"_

" _Hush, Natsu," she shot back, carrying a threat in her tone and her glare. He complied. "We need to rethink our strategy," she said, rising out of her crater and rubbing where the demon had struck her._

" _You should attack him from the right this time," Natsu advised, "while I pull Gildarts out of the moat."_

" _ **Your secret plans would work better if I couldn't hear them,"**_ _E.N.D. called, shifting his spear to his left talon as a ball of azure fire danced to life in his right. He lobbed the fireball over his shoulder at Erza, who dodged out of the way, but the ensuing cerulean explosion overtook her, eliciting a shriek of pain from the stoic swordswoman._

 _Instead of dying away, the blue blaze burned the jasper, continuing its enchanting dance across the red stone to the rhythm of Erza's pained screams. Natsu ran over to her, taking chunks out of the demonic flames. If scream volume was anything to go off of, the blue fires hurt Natsu much less than the requip mage but eating it still burned his throat. The first mouthful had Natsu writhing on the floor, but he still continued to suck in the fires that licked at Erza's body._

 _After what felt like a lifetime of torture, the fires touching Erza were gone. Natsu stumbled towards her, dragging her out of the baking heat through the path he had cleared. She had stopped screaming, but Natsu may not have noticed._

 _Escaping the conflagration allowed Natsu to survey his guildmate's condition. Her skin was red and blistered where it wasn't charred, and her armor glowed red-hot. He shook with an impotent anger, unable to do anything to the demon that hurt his guildmates. That is when, in the distance, he heard wingbeats._

" _ **I think it's time you joined your friends,"**_ _the demon growled, reaching down to pick Gildarts up by the neck of the mage's cloak. The crash mage flailed weakly, oxygen deprivation slowly turning him blue. Blood leaked out of the man's mouth, and the demon sneered again._ _ **"After all, humans belong together,"**_ _the tattooed one snickered, hurling Fairy Tail's ace into the air. He flapped up after Gildarts, where the demon caught the crash mage's leg and swung him around, sending the man into the still-burning patch of fire. E.N.D. tucked in his limbs and fell through the air, slamming into Gildarts's chest with the revolting_ crunch _of bones breaking._

 _With one fairy dispatched, Natsu's dopp_ _elgänger turned towards the remaining two._

 _Scratch that, one._ _ **"I expected your protectors to take more hits than that, Conscience. You're just full of disappointments, aren't you?"**_ _the demon taunted, twirling his spear._

" _ **There's still one left!"**_ _a new voice bellowed._

 _The Natsus identified this new character at the same time, exclaiming his name in unison as a great red dragon burst through the domed ceiling._

" _Igneel!" the normal Natsu exclaimed, his joyous cry ringing through the chamber as tears gathered in his eyes._

" _ **Igneeel!"**_ _the horned Natsu yelled, irreverent anger finally dominating his tone._

 _The scarred dragon grinned as the roof fell around him, presenting himself as a new threat to the demon. One of the stone chunks landed on E.N.D.'s skull throne, squashing the masterful tribute to chaos._

 _The demon began to twitch, fuming in anger, his spasms growing every second as sparks danced in his pink hair._ _ **"You're going to pay for destroying my throne,"**_ _the tattooed one declared, his voice dangerously even, as his head ignited in a flickering plume of Arctic, Aegean, and Admiral Blue._

 _E.N.D. unfurled his wings and shot towards Igneel with a snarl. He sank his spear into the dragon's beige throat, dragging it up and around to all but decapitate him, and finished the job with a vertical spin kick brought down between Igneel's horns before the dragon could fire a retort._

 _The great dragon's body went limp as his head left his neck, spilling blood across the stone._

 _The tears of joy previously gathered in the dragonslayer's eyes were flooded by new ones of grief and anger as unwanted images of the scene in his guildhall flashed through his head._

 _A floor bathed in blood._

 _Not finished with his rage, the demon grabbed one of Igneel's horns and swung the dragon's skull like a club, slamming it into Gildarts's lifeless body over and over again._ _ **"I'll take your skull and make a new throne out of it!"**_ _he ranted_ _ **"And put it in the center of a pool of your blood, you goody-two-shoes, do-gooder, detestable dragon!"**_

 _Igneel's broken, bodyless head._

 _With his two greatest foes squashed and broken beneath him, the demon once again turned to the dragonslayer._ _ **"It's your turn to join them, Conscience, and I won't have any of your pesky whining,"**_ _he purred, thrusting his spear into his oh-so-precious jasper floor as he marched towards Natsu at an ominous, agonizingly slow pace._

 _Gildarts's shattered shape._

 _Erza gave a pained gasp as she regained consciousness. Like a cat to a mouse, the tattooed one's gaze sprung to her, and his unsated ire found a new target. He darted over her, seizing her blistered neck to choke her out while he lifted her above his head. "_ _ **I'll flay the skin from your body!"**_ _he raved, hair cavorting in his chthonian conflagration of a crown_

 _Snow-white hair framing Lisanna's beautiful face, her eyes gouged out of their sockets._

" _You," Natsu snarled._

" _ **Me,"**_ _E.N.D. crooned._

" _ **You!"**_ _the dragonslayer roared._

" _ **Us,"**_ _the demon murmured._

 _Natsu's hands ignited with a red-orange flame._

" _ **You won't do much with that,"**_ _the winged one said, continuing his march towards the dragonslayer._

 _Natsu's fire shifted from a warm color scheme to black. Gone was its homely heat and illuminating light, replaced with an unyielding want for destruction._

 _E.N.D. raised a pink eyebrow and dropped the charred requip mage._

 _With a shout of, "You're gonna pay!" Natsu charged, fueled by grief and wrath._

 _The demon met him, face to fist, and a duel for the history books began._

 _Natsu followed up his initial strike with a flaming axe kick, which his opponent caught and used to take the dragonslayer to the ground. The demon laid into his opponent with a flurry of punches to the gut, followed by an open-palmed strike to Natsu's chin, slamming his head into the bloody red flagstone._

 _With a shout of "Fire Dragon Wing Attack!" Natsu cracked exploding whips of wrath across his demonic double's face and chest. The ensuing fireball sent the horned one into a stack of crates, which he rose from as Natsu charged him._

 _E.N.D. grabbed Natsu by his scarf and used it to fling the dragonslayer into a wall. Natsu pivoted in midair as the winged one flew after him, and used the wall as a springboard to leap onto his doppelgänger's back._

 _With a yell of, "Fire Dragon Roar!" Natsu erupted black flames into his alter-ego at point-blank range, which E.N.D. countered by slamming into walls to knock the dragonslayer off. Natsu still held on, clinging to the demon's horns._

 _The winged one flew up, up through the gash Igneel had torn in the roof, and up while Natsu kicked at his back._

 _For the first time in the whole fight, E.N.D. gave a grunt of pain. Natsu smiled savagely and drew back for another kick to the tattooed one's back._

 _That is when, as one, the demon's horns and wings began to flake away, scattering like ashes in the wind, and the Natsus began to freefall._

 _Natsu's blow separated the two, and E.N.D. smirked at the dragonslayer. He said something, but the wind ripped the words from his mouth._

 _Blue fire sparked to life around the tattooed one and flared into the shape of wings. E.N.D. pulled out of his plunge as they solidified into the extended phalangeal bone structure of bat wings and flames turned into a thin tissue. A new ball of fire flickered to life in his right hand, and he hurled it at the dragonslayer._

 _Natsu crashed into a pile of crates before hitting the ground and disappeared into a ball of blue fire as the fiend's attack exploded with a_ fwoosh _, consuming the wood and igniting the blood and stone within a twelve-foot radius. The demon flapped down from above, standing above the dragonslayer. He stooped down and picked up Natsu by the throat._

" _ **I will finally have complete control over my body again,"**_ _E.N.D. professed with a wild look in his eye, or maybe it was just the firestorm that raged around his head._ _ **"I've waited 400 years for this moment, and it will be**_ **glorious** _ **. I shall take my place on the throne of the pit, and visit havoc upon the humans of this world. Zeref and the false dragon shall fall at my hand, and a new terror shall grip Earthland."**_

 _The winged one stopped, a contemplative pause, and his face expressed his new sadistic idea as one hand ignited in blue flames. They grew hotter and brighter as he concentrated while Natsu's vision slowly faded. Pain surged through Natsu as the demon pressed his hand to the dragonslayer's left shoulder and skin bubbled and burned, filling Natsu's nose with an acrid stench. E.N.D. pulled his hand away to reveal two thick black marks arcing around the captured pinkette's deltoid, filled by three more short diagonal swipes, a shortened version of the winged one's own shoulder marks._

" _ **Honestly, it's like I was destined to do this. You've even gone and found your own chains!"**_ _the demon observed._

 _A dull_ thump _echoed through Natsu's skull, followed by a faint golden glow shining in through the hole in the roof above Igneel's corpse. The most confounding thing that happened was E.N.D.'s reaction. The demon's smile evaporated from his face and was replaced with a scowl as he dropped Natsu like a hot potato._ _ **"What's happening?"**_ _he asked, backing warily away from Natsu and into the light._

 _Natsu gasped for the air his doppleg_ _ä_ _nger had kept him from before he rose and picked up the chains his would-be captor had threatened him with. "I dunno, but it seems good to me," the dragonslayer responded with at least as much cluelessness._

 _The tattooed pinkette kept backing away as the light washed over him._ _ **"No, no,"**_ _he muttered,_ _ **"Nononono."**_

 _The heat that had licked at the dragonslayer diminished and Natsu looked down to see that the blue flames were smaller and confined to the wood and that he had started to glow a faint yellow._

 _E.N.D. went sprawling, sliding across the blood-soaked floor. "Who has complete control now?" Natsu mocked, fists aflame and away, inviting a strike._

" _ **I'm not done yet,"**_ _E.N.D. vowed as he took flight. He summoned a fireball and hurled it at Natsu, who rolled away. This blue explosion was significantly smaller than the previous ones and lacked the heat to ignite the stone. Natsu had little trouble gobbling it up._

 _E.N.D. looked like he had just swallowed a lemon, for the tables had turned._

" _I'm all fired up," the dragonslayer declared as a smile crept across his face, before launching himself at his doppelgänger._

 _Natsu let loose a geyser of flame and sent his opponent careening into a wall. Natsu climbed through the air after his tattooed twin by blasting fire out of the soles of his feet. Upon reaching his adversary, the dragonslayer delivered a blazing cartwheel kick between the demon's horns, sending the tattooed one into the ground._

" _You're never gonna hurt my friends!" Natsu yelled, landing a flurry of blows into the fiend's face. He continued the beatdown, breathing fire and throwing burning punches in a growing cloud of dust._

" _And to make certain," Natsu panted, "that my friends are safe," he continued, walking over to the pile of wood ash, "I'm gonna tie you up." Natsu picked up the chains and E.N.D. had created and drug them over, wrapping the heavy links around the delirious demon's chest and limbs._

" _I think you're missing something," Natsu muttered, rubbing his bruised chin in thought. With a cry of "Aha!" a pile of padlocks appeared, which Natsu began securing the wrapped demon with._

" _You still need something else," the dragonslayer muttered, rubbing his welt-covered head, "But I can't think when," his sentence was cut off by a yawn, "I'm so tired."_

 _The dragonslayer tipped over, sleepily muttering "I'll fix it later," as his consciousness faded._

* * *

 _Tartaros castle, The Cube, some mountain range_

"What's this?" a demoness asked, staring at the monitor, surrounded by a panel of sensors and buttons, before her. Two golden horns curled out and forward from the sides of her head, their bases covered by long, raven hair. Her bangs were held in place by a white hairband, revealing an eye-shaped purple mark in the center of her forehead. She wore a skimpy leopard-print kimono that struggled to contain her breasts with a thick green ribbon wrapped around her waist and a pair of black stockings on her legs and otherwise-bare feet.

"This seems a lovely twist in our tartarean tale. I must let Mard Geer know his foreshadowing has come to pass," she muttered to herself, rising to her feet and walking through the stone corridors.

After a few minutes of strolling through the massive stone castle, the demoness opened a fanciful pair of double doors into a stone throne room. Directly across the flagstones, in an ornately carved stone chair covered in pictures of human suffering, sat a man with long, black hair set in a high ponytail behind his head, with two long locks framing his face and coming to rest on his black, blue-patterned coat's lapel while long, thin bangs intersected above his pale nose. He leaned against one armrest with his right arm supporting his apathetic façade. He perked up a little as the demoness entered the throne room.

"What brings you to my presence, Sayla?" he asked, an unspoken threat hiding in his tone.

"Mard Geer, what you foretold has come to pass. The humans have altered our storyline and freed Master E.N.D. from his book."

"Then tell me, Sayla," the masculine demon lectured condescendingly, "why have I not felt his presence?"

"Our sensors on the Fiorian coast have detected a spike in curse power far greater than that generated by any of the Nine Demon Gates. It will take some time before the pulse reaches us here, and it will have faded significantly when it does."

"I must hand it to those humans," Mard Geer began, "The world's most vile creatures are highly competent at playing into our hands. Perhaps we should spare the group that did us this favor."

* * *

 **A/N: So, What'd you think? Love it? Loathe it? Did you find the hints to an inspiration for Captain Klossner and are willing to guess and go vote in the expanded poll for his Edolas counterpart? Review and let me know!**

* **a type of medieval Japanese spear with a long, straight blade and a prong sticking off of it somewhere on said blade.**

 **The January 2019 TurboPack, the month of my first Fanfiction post, is here. But first, review replies!**

 **To midnightscar17: I have graciously granted your request. You may now shower me in praises as you arrange my Triumph through through the streets of REDACTED**

 **To Immortal Ninjaaa: The scenes in Natsu's head are setting up my plans for the trio of E.N.D., Natsu, and the caged dragon. I had E.N.D. refer to Natsu as Conscience to show that they are separate entities of the same being, like a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder or the Id, Ego, and Superego of the Freudian** **personality, with E.N.D. as the vicious Id and Natsu the moral Superego. They are _one_ person, but they are _not_ the same, and I will build and expand this as I write.**

 **Without further ado, I give you the January 2019 TurboPack:**

 **Myself, the one and only Turbowolf, preparing for my 1st Fanfiction birthday!**

 **Puck100**

 **Moshiyari, midnightscar17**

 **EazyFade, DaedricSlayer1337, darkexplosionz**

 **LCO3,**

 **xPug99x, whynot3993, REiNozomi, txenpai, , ZKARYX, BiggerOnDaInside**

 **Maximum Membership is 15. [*cracks whip* Appreciate me more, slaves!]**


	9. Darkness Aboard

**A/N: Why do I keep finishing these things near 1 in the morning? I really need inspiration to come at a better time…**

 **Have you people ever driven a standard? Lemme tell you, it certainly isn't any easier with paws.**

 **In other news, I found a betareader who's willing to suffer my shit and shenanigans. He's been workin' with me since not too long after Chapter 8 came out. If you've re-read the earlier chapters recently, you probably know who it is. Say hello to the hoo-mans, Ikrani!**

 _B/N: NO! I shall not say hello. Instead, I shall deliver a warning to yon living mortals: whomsoever opens the Chest of Demons will release 13 of the most terrifying ghosts upon the face of the Earth! In less/more apocalyptic news, I didn't change all that much about this fic, if I'm being honest. At least, not in comparison to some of the fics I ended up CO-WRITING._

 **That's all well and good, but let's get on with the show.**

 **Wait, I told you to stay out of the 'shroom patch! This is what happens when you ignore my advice! Now quit throwing the shadecaps and get to work! I need them for foreshadowing!**

 **Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail. That right belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lucky bastard. I do not make any sort of money off of this and only own who/what I come up with.**

 _B/N:_ _I could help with that, too, if you like._

* * *

"This is talking,"

'This is thinking,' and special circumstances

Italics*Italics=normal

 **This is When Shit's Goin' Down**

* * *

 **Darkness Aboard**

A soft prod from something cold brought Lucy back to consciousness, and she opened her eyes only to see an incredible white light. She snapped her eyes shut before it blinded her and felt an oddly warm pair of goggles being set in her palm.

Lucy pressed the goggles to her face and pulled the elastic strap around her head before opening her eyes again. The heavily tinted lenses filtered out enough light to make it seem like an especially bright day instead of the inside of a star. Charles was squatting next to her, his own sungoggles on his face and a small metal thermos in his left hand.

"What was that light?" she asked, confused and disoriented as she slowly rose on the rolling deck.

"That's the Captain's… thing," the sergeant supplied, pointing towards the armored man slumped against the starboard gunwale.

Lukas was nowhere near as intimidating asleep as he was awake. Despite the newly revealed scars that cleaved his brows and marred his face, he could pass as harmless. He appeared to have shrunk, perhaps only 5'9" now, as a line of drool oozed down his cheek to the plate his chin rested on. His hair also looked different, having faded to the color of wheat. Like the sky after the sun set, Lucy understood why he had seemed so intimidating now that it was gone. During every waking hour, he had exuded an aura of obedience that none could question. With sleep, that aura had fled.

The blonde mage surveyed the rest of the deck to find it cleared of people, save herself, the king's men, and the mayor in the wheelhouse with another pair of blackout goggles. "Where'd all the people go?" she inquired.

"They're below decks," Charles answered. "I don't have any more tinted goggles."

"Why didn't you give another of the townspeople this pair? They know how to sail and I don't, Charles," the celestial mage half-asked, half-accused.

"We aren't exactly sailing right now, and I need you to explain what your friend is doing," the soldier said, pointing upwards.

Natsu lay overhead, at the apex of the blistering white dome, where he was spasming like an epileptic. Fires sparked and died around him while he foamed at the mouth. Burns covered his left arm and had made some inroads across his chest. His vest and skirt-thing had burned away, but somehow the most important part of his pants was not ash and his scarf was fully intact around his neck. The pyroclastic flow was long gone, so there was nothing to explain his seizing.

Natsu stopped shaking and sparking for no discernible reason, and his muscles visibly relaxed.

"Do you have any idea what's going on?" Charles asked, to which Lucy could only shake her head. "Normally the shield would have dissipated after the volcanic gasses left, but it's still here, so we can't go anywhere."

As if waiting for a cue, the glowing white sphere disappeared with a faint poof and plunged everyone into darkness. Lucy jumped as something hit the deck with a loud thump, before she pulled off her goggles to see.

Natsu was now sprawled unconscious on the deck as a sea breeze swept over the ship, ruffling everyone's hair. With a return to normalcy, Charles pulled out a spyglass and a compass as Lucy took a closer look at the goggles. They appeared to be standard safety goggles, except covered in the thickest coat of black paint the celestial mage had ever seen.

The black smog the volcano had emitted was gone, dispersed by the four winds. The sun shone down upon the deck of the _Mary Sue_ and cast short shadows from its position overhead.

"How long was I out?" Lucy asked, running a hand through her hair, where bits of wood had become entwined during her impromptu nap.

The sergeant lowered his spyglass and frowned. "Two hours? Five? I'm not really sure." He turned to starboard and lifted the tiny telescope, resuming his survey of the surrounding sea.

"I see survivors!" Charles exclaimed before compressing the spyglass and barking orders, "Set heading one-six-zero!"

"Heading one-six-zero," Tim repeated as he turned the wheel.

"Accelerate to ten knots!"

"Accelerating," the mayor chorused.

"The light's gone! Someone take these clowns below!" the sergeant hollered at the deck while he gestured at the unconscious men and Lucy. Three townspeople emerged from the hold. One helped Lucy carry Natsu while the other two dragged the armored man, clanking down the stairs.

As the _Mary Sue_ cruised through the water, a set of dots appeared on the horizon. As the boat came closer, they became the discernible shapes of five people—one of them in a getup of green, purple, and orange ugly enough to repulse the magical sea creatures that would ordinarily investigate for snacks.

The group of survivors began swimming towards the Mary Sue as Mr. Carmen pulled back on the throttle and coasted to a stop, bringing the clump of cultists up off the port side. Charles and another man began hauling them aboard, where the cultists huddled in a soggy clump next to the port gunwale.

"Ian Williams, I am bringing you and the rest of your ALAA in for Domestic Terrorism," the sergeant started.

A rustle passed through the soggy cultists like a threatened beehive as they shifted and tensed. "'N' who're you to do so?" the gaudily-dressed leader shot back with venom in his voice.

"Sergeant Hammond of the Royal First Magical Bat—"

One of the soggy men sprung, boots squelching as he pushed himself towards Charles. A blade gleamed in the sunlight as he drew a knife from his robes, and the NCO saved his introduction for another time.

Quick as a flash, Sgt. Hammond drew the rapier that had rested on his hip and thrust into the robed man's path.

The two went down in a swirl of black robes, and the other henchmen sprang into action. Two dashed for the pilothouse, while one wrestled with the man who had helped haul them aboard. Another pried a loose board out of the deck and advanced on Lucy.

Lucy's hand sorted through her keys by muscle memory, picking the one option she had for this fight. Taurus had already come out today and Aquarius would sink the boat and leave everyone stranded.

"Help!" the other man shouted as a cultist slowly overpowered him, "Somebody help!"

"Open, Gate of the Giant Crab!" the celestial mage cried, raising Cancer's key into the air. A golden-yellow seal appeared, followed shortly by a lean man in a blue-striped button-up shirt and black pants with red-and-brown cornrows, crab legs protruding from his back, and a small satchel.

"Lookin' for some better bangs, ebi?" the man asked, his voice flowing smoothly out of his mouth.

"Fighting now, styling later!" Lucy shot back, pointing at the cultist as he swung at Cancer.

The _Mary Sue_ lurched to starboard and the engines growled as she began accelerating, sending multiple brawlers crashing to the deck, echoed by a chorus of thuds from the lower deck.

Cancer ducked his opponent's swipe, which, combined with the listing green boards, left the robed man overextended. The crab spirit used his momentum to spin on his right foot and bring his left around, driving his heel into the cultist's ribcage and knocked the man prone. He bared his scissors and faced his enemy, only to realize he had knocked the hood off of a bald man.

"That wasn't the mayor's piloting!" someone exclaimed from under Lucy's feet.

"You got this, Cancer?" the mage asked as the _Mary Sue_ pitched to port.

"You know it, ebi," the spirit replied, rummaging through his hairdressing supplies as the man with the board rolled to his feet.

"Quick! Take the wrench! Turn off the engines!" another yelled over the mechanical rumble from further afore.

Lucy ran towards the stern, where Ian and one of his followers had laid out the mayor. The gaudily-dressed man was behind the wheel, while his minion took out the townspeople who ran up from below decks. The celestial mage leapt, positioning herself midair for a powerful dropkick—

"Behind you!" Ian shouted.

The henchman whirled, taking Lucy's kick to the chest and slammed backward. He smacked his head into the corner of the pilothouse and slid to the ground, unconscious.

The boat's engines faded to a strained rumble from their roaring, which was then replaced by an unnerving clicking as the _Mary Sue_ slowed down, carried along only by prior momentum.

"Take _that_ , clutches!" the voice that had announced Mr. Carmen was no longer in control cheered in triumph.

A man Lucy recognized as the spear guard from earlier sprinted up the steps with a sword in his hand, followed closely by another man and the woman from before as the mage entered the pilothouse.

Rather, Lucy would have entered, if the entrance hadn't flashed a deep purple and turned into a solid barrier, stopping her in her tracks.

Ian cackled. "Nobody can pass through this rune barrier!" The text that flashed across the barrier said the exact same thing.

A mighty crash stopped his gloating, spraying the rune mage with glass shards as he whirled around.

Behind the pilothouse stood spear-guard-turned-sword-man, pulling back from bashing the circular pommel into the window. He spun his wrist, pointing the blade into the cramped shelter, before lunging forward.

The rune barrier did nothing as the arming sword passed through it. Ian raised his arms to block the blade, and it sliced into his hideous sleeve and the meat of his left forearm. The cult leader cried out as blood poured out of the gash, and the armed man pulled back. Ian sank to the floor and squeezed the slash with his hand in an attempt to stem the bleeding.

Ian howled as Former Spear Guard sliced into his robed shoulder, at the very end of the blade's reach, before tipping over onto the deck to get away from further strikes. This elicited a pained cry of its own as glass shards dug into his right side.

The man with the sword drew back before looking up. With a glance past Lucy and the townspeople outside the entrance to the pilothouse, he asked, "What now, Sergeant Hammond?"

Stumbling across the deck towards the stern were the two men who had hauled the remainder of the ALAA aboard. Sgt. Hammond's front was soaked in blood and he had a gouging cut that started in his left shoulder near his neck, tore down into his left pectoral, and nicked his upper arm. The blue in the other man's face stood out against the red ringing his neck, and he was already sporting a black eye and several forming bruises. It was hard to tell who was supporting whom, as they were leaning precariously against each other and seemed to trip every other step.

"Tie these jackasses up," the soldier began with a wild flail at the unconscious cultists, "And wait for him to crawl out or bleed out."

The deck shifted as the _Mary Sue_ came to a stop, and the bruised man stumbled and fell to his knees. Hammond followed him, face-planting onto the green planks. "Dammit," he grumbled.

A man and a woman emerged from belowdecks, each with multiple coils of rope. The man knelt next to the semi-conscious cultist Lucy had kicked and began to tie him up, while the woman and all the other townspeople in front of the pilothouse moved to bind the cultists amidships.

"Check 'em for weapons," Hammond mumbled from the deck. He was almost inaudible, so the woman with the ropes yelled it to the others.

With the fighting over, Lucy surveyed the deck again. Three black-robed people were laid across the deck in addition to the bruised and bloodied pairs near the stern. One was face up in a pool of his own blood where he'd tackled the Sergeant, a stab wound through his chest and a bloody knife near his hand. Another was slumped against the port gunwale with plenty of bruises and a familiar rapier sticking out of his gut as one of the men patted him down. The one tied up first was the board-wielding bald man Cancer trimmed, nicks all over his body and his robe reduced to a cut-out line of connected paper people.

Cancer himself was nowhere to be seen, and once Lucy realized that, the exhaustion from her taxed magic reserves hit her full-force and she crumpled to the deck next to the henchman she had kicked.

Lucy groaned, delirious, "Might've been better if he just knocked me out." Cancer had left her with enough magic to remain conscious, but little else.

"This one's dead!" someone shouted, hovering over the robed corpse face-up in a pool of blood.

Feet—bare, sandaled, socked, or booted—began marching up the stairs, and more townspeople carried Sgt. Hammond and the bruised man belowdecks while the unconscious henchmen were lashed together.

"Barrier's down!" someone else declared, pulling Ian out of the pilothouse and trussing him up, ignoring the ringleader's pained whines.

"Johnathan, fire up the engines!" came another shout from the pilothouse. "We have control of the boat again!"

"Will do!" the voice that had cheered replied from below.

There was an audible squeal of metal on metal as the magical machinery fought motion, then the engines gave a begrudging cough and went from clicking to a reassuring purr as intended.

The SS _Mary Sue_ turned to starboard and chugged through the waves, headed back to Fiore.

* * *

 **So, what'd you think? Love it? Loathe it? Leave a review and tell me!**

 **Did I tell you that I have a poll up on my profile? Did I tell you that it's for an Edolas counterpart? Yes? No? Go vote!**

 **I would like to formally thank Ikrani for his work, past and future, with me on making this story better. He doesn't fully understand the impact he has on the chapters, but I do and I think you guys, the readers, can see it too. I'd like to give him a big howl as we introduce the June 2019 TurboPack, but first, a review reply!**

 **To Sishen123: On the first count, I admit to being guilty as charged. On the second, however, I believe there is a fitting quote from a popular TV show that goes "You're ignorant, Jack Frost." Or something like that. You're also proof that reviews make me work faster, because WDR had slipped to the back of my mind until I saw your review.**

 **Without further ado, I give you the June 2019 TurboPack!**

 **Yours truly, the one and only TurboWolf as Alpha**

 **The honorable Ikrani, the hardworking Beta**

 **Puck100**

 **Moshiyari, midnightscar17**

 **EasyFade, Daedricslayer1337, darkexplosionz, Sishen123**

 **LCO3, Immortal ninjaaa,**

 **xPug99x, whynot3993, REiNozomi, and txenpai**


	10. Landfall

**A/N: Sorry it took me so long to put this one out. School started back up, so I focused a little more on homework, and I started reading Robert Jordan's** _ **The Wheel of Time**_ **. In other news, I got a bank account, and am setting up a . If you think I deserve pay for my writing or something, go to pat re on /TurboWolf. (remove spaces)**

 **Why must you censor pat reon, FanFiction?**

 **Anyway, wish me luck on the PSAT tomorrow!**

 _B/N: Took YOU so long? I've been wrestling with this since early September, going back and forth and back again to sand off the rough spots. The only iron man match I've wrestled that went longer is the ongoing bout between me and my hairline. You know, the one I'm currently losing._

 **A/N: Look, it's my standard apology, Okay? I don't want to have to explain about Calculus— wait a minute, do you have Mange? Get away, diseased human! My coat is too sleek to fall out!**

 **DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail. That right belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lucky bastard. I only own what/who I come up with.**

* * *

"This is talking,"

 _'This is thinking,' and special circumstances_

 _Italics_ * _Italics_ =normal

 **This is When Shit's Goin' Down.**

* * *

 **Landfall**

"Are you sure this is Hargeon?" Lucy asked as the _Mary Sue_ drifted, pulling her anchor chains taught.

600 feet away from where the waves lapped calmly at the boat's hull lay the wreckage of what once was a town. The moonlight cast over it, wreathing the silent devastation in a haunting silver glow.

The piers were gone, replaced by swathes of broken, floating debris. All of the buildings were covered in—or converted into—massive heaps of cracked wood and crumbling stone. Numerous boat wrecks were strewn about, some resting atop the shattered town while others barely peeked out of the water. The forest had been leveled along the coast as far as the eye could see, and tree trunks laid across caved-in structures and roads just as often as they floated lifelessly in the water. Gone were the sandy beaches, carved away by the ocean and replaced with dark, murky muck.

The Captain grimaced and shook his head. "Not anymore." He had shed his uniform save for his sword, and was back in civilian clothes that left his multitude of scars visible.

"We need to take a closer look," Captain Klossner declared. "Weigh anchor!"

Seconds later the response came. "Anchors aweigh!" Once the grind of the anchor wheel ceased, the captain nudged the throttle and the boat slowly chugged forward.

The officer navigated closer to the shore, looking for a place close enough to shore for the passengers to swim but deep enough that the 35-foot boat wouldn't run aground.

* * *

After an hour of searching, they stumbled upon a section of water with dozens of thick logs floating about, not so densely packed as to bar travel and not too far from the shore as to necessitate the only lifeboat.

"Hammond! Tyler! Gerald!" the Captain called, waving over the soldier and two men who had helped tie up the ALAA. "You three are to swim to shore and judge how bad it really is, and look for any landmarks among the ruins. I want to know exactly where we are. If possible, come back in a lifeboat so we can begin ferrying people ashore. If not, make one!"

"Yes, sir!" the Sergeant replied, snapping a salute before turning towards the port side. He shed his shoes and bloodstained shirt before clambering over the gunwale and swimming away, the other men trailing just behind him. They navigated the gauntlet of support beams and waterlogged foliage until they found a thick tree trunk stripped barren of bark and branches shorn off by whatever had occurred. Making double use of it as a flotation device and battering ram, they began pushing their way through Hargeon's grave.

"Lucy!" the Captain shouted, beckoning the only other mage on deck over as he descended into the hold.

Belowdecks was a cluttered area, except for the wide berth given to the four robed men tied to a bulkhead. Almost forty people were sitting on the deck or pilfered patio furniture, all of them sharing the same half-starved look from weeks of dwindling rations. The warped scent of hardtack and pickled herring permeated the air, mixed with the odor of vomit. Several people sat crisscross in the starboard aft with cards and baubles on the planks between them, playing some form of poker in hushed conversation. A few babies cried as their parents swaddled them, but there were two main activities.

The first was mourning. Not everyone Cpt. Klossner had brought with him had been alive. Twenty people, an assortment of men, women, and children, were huddled around the bodies of two dark-haired children and a wrinkled old man. Whether they cried for the dead, for their homes, for their island, or for their old lives, they were bereaved as one.

The second method for killing time, popular with the children not old enough to understand what had happened and those saving their grief for another time, was to gawk at the Dragon Slayer. Natsu was asleep in the mattress in the bow, with the disheveled sheets pulled up to the center of his chest and arms uncovered. Some people recognized the wild Natsu Dragneel, Fairy Tail's powerful—and destructive—fire mage with an equally untamed head of salmon-pink hair. True, it was only children who looked at him, for anyone less naïve knew better than to risk their food upon a nauseating sight.

The blistered skin of a second-degree burn slithered up his left arm from his hand to his shoulder, where it flared out across his left pectoral like a skeletal hand. Charred skin loosely mirrored the bone structure of his arm on the outside and inside, flaring out in rough sections of scorched skin until it reached his shoulder. A blackened third-degree burn flared out around his central deltoid, covering most of the root of his arm in charred flesh. Flies flitted about the filthy yellow puss dotting the exposed flesh, untreated and tainted as it was. Lucy could barely keep her stomach in check, and that's when the abhorrent stench hit her.

It was repulsive, the odor of decay mixed with vinegar, vomit, and the acrid tang of burned flesh, all of it fanned by the wingbeats of a hundred flies.

She turned around and dashed back up the steps she had just come down, the stench following at her heels. Lucy made a beeline for the starboard gunwale, hand pressed to her mouth to keep her rebellious stomach where it was. Leaning over the side took gravity out of the equation, allowing her to puke out all she'd eaten that day, splattering it into the water below. Groaning, Lucy spat the bile from her mouth and blinked away the tears in her eyes. In that moment, she believed she understood why Natsu hated boats.

 _Natsu._ He lay below, wreathed with scents of death, while she stood on deck. He needed help, and leaning over the gunwale wouldn't give it.

Turning away from the salty air, she set her jaw and started back down the stairs. Not three steps down, the stench of Natsu's burns met her nostrils again. Back to the side she went, her stomach heaving its remaining cargo into the ocean.

The Captain appeared in the stairwell, a grimy and bloodstained rag in his hand, which he offered to the girl. "This is the cleanest cloth I could find. It should smell better than..." he trailed off, conveying his meaning without words.

It was not a high boast, so Lucy accepted the torn piece of shirt readily. At least, she thought it was from a shirt, but the scent of blood, sweat, and general grime muting the fetor of vomit, pus, and decay quickly drove that line of inquiry from her mind.

"I would invite you to sit, but there are no more chairs," Lukas murmured, careful not to interrupt the mourners as he knelt next to the pink-haired man.

"I'll... be fine." Lucy stumbled back, tucking her skirt underneath her as she sat on the slowly rolling deck. The dirty rag offered her refuge from the miasma, quieting her stomach enough to stay below.

"Do you have any idea what could have caused this?" he asked, gesturing at Natsu's arm. Lucy averted her eyes and merely shook her head, lest she gaze upon the nauseating sight and make herself sick yet again.

"I have an idea, but I hope it is wrong." Lukas raised his hands, holding them above the fire mage as if hesitant to touch him. "Has this happened before? Is it common, with wielding flames?" He lifted the Dragon Slayer's left side to reveal more blistered skin across his left trapezius muscles; Lucy saw this through her fingers, shielding the worst parts of Natsu's wounds.

"Happy say—urp" Lucy started, interrupted by a wave of queasiness. "Happy says he doesn't get burned."

That set a worried frown on the man's scarred face as he gingerly laid Natsu back down.

"Should I heal him?" Lukas asked, eyebrows knit in nervous anticipation.

"You can heal people?" the celestial mage asked back, incredulous.

"The other stabbed cultists would be dead if I could not."

"Why is that a question? Yes!" Lucy emphatically hissed. One of the mourners scowled at her for being too loud, and she gave a sheepish grin beneath her rag.

"Alright," the scarred man replied, lifting his hands with all sorts of misgivings written on his face. "I will be honest: I do not know what is about to happen."

Lukas took a deep breath in through his nose; how he could manage that with the reek belowdecks, Lucy couldn't fathom. Steeling his nerves and willing that the nervousness wash out of him, he murmured, " _Lux Sanidadem, Lux Purgadiem._ "

A shimmering ball of golden light appeared between the soldier's hands. He pulled them apart vertically, and the orb grew with the area between his palms. He started at Natsu's hand, passing the appendage through the column of light.

"Wait, what do you mean you don't know what's about to happen?" Lucy demanded.

The fire mage gave a pained hiss as soon as the beam touched his skin, which faded, but did not stop, as the swordsman moved up his arm.

Within the light, an orange-red fire sparked and spread. It hissed and spat, drowning out Natsu, releasing the acrid stench of burning flesh as it consumed the fire mage's blistered skin. Behind the flickering flames appeared an angry red as the first layers of the Dragon Slayer's skin burned away.

The black of a third-degree burn, however, changed little. It was sanded down by the light and refined by the fire, turning from a twisted scorch into two sharp lines of char that traveled up Natsu's forearm.

The scarred man paused, his eyebrows knitted together as every muscle in his upper body tensed. The light between his hands grew brighter. Sweat beaded around his head, and everyone could feel the raw power running through his spell. He relaxed, and the golden radiance shifted to a harsh white that forced its enraptured audience to look away.

Natsu's pained hiss turned into a distressed growl as Lukas backtracked down his arm before continuing up again.

"What are you doing?!" Lucy screeched, attempting to pull the larger man away from Natsu, but she might have been trying to move a mountain for all he budged.

The fire mage began to thrash, clawing at the air, at the bed, and at himself, while his head whipped from side to side.

"Hold him down!" the Captain shouted, clamping down on Natsu's upper arm.

Several eager children grabbed the Dragon Slayer's right arm but were thrown off when he flailed again and slammed his fist into the officer's chest. A wild kick caught one of the men surrounding him in the chin and sent him to the ground.

The man formerly known as Spear Guard caught the pinkette's next right hook and wrestled his arm into the mattress. The still-unconscious Natsu strained and fought against the men's grip, snapping at the hands that reached for his head and throwing his shoulders around as his right leg was grappled down.

Two more townspeople ran over, wresting the fire mage's left leg to the floor as Natsu wrenched his arm out of the soldier's grip. Another man caught the pinkette's forearm before dropping it, yelping as the fire that consumed Natsu's burned skin licked at his hands.

Lucy was all alone as she pulled on Captain Klossner, yelling, "Stop! Can't you see you're hurting him?!"

Seemingly unfazed, the officer lunged and seized Natsu's thrashing arm, groaning as the blinding light and flickering fire surrounded his own calloused hands. He continued the beam's trek the rest of the way up to the pinkette's shoulder as sweat poured down his face and Natsu thrashed every way he could.

Lucy stood up.

She was fed up.

This man _dared_ to keep hurting her guild mate when he howled and thrashed in pain, when the choking odor of his skin burning filled the forward deck, and she would tolerate it no longer.

But she had no options to change it.

More out of frustration than any belief it would make a difference, the celestial mage opened her hand and cranked her arm back before swinging forward. Her palm met a scarred cheek with a reverberating _smack!_

The captain's head snapped to the side, and his spell popped and crackled before sputtering out of existence.

Natsu went limp, falling back onto the bed from where he had struggled off of it.

The townspeople, wary of being caught by surprise, held on for a few moments before slowly letting go, one by one.

Lukas blinked, shocked, before he turned to Spear Guard. "Tell me when he wakes up," he ordered, and his tone brokered no questioning despite the wooziness evident in his voice.

Without waiting for a reply, he rose to his feet and spun around. Even tired as he was, his aim was true, and the back of his hand caught Lucy in the cheek. The celestial mage reeled, staggering sideways before her legs came out from under her and she fell to the deck.

Underestimating his exhaustion, his spin continued, and he stumbled before righting himself and glaring down at her. "Furious" now seemed apathetic next to the man standing over Lucy. A vein had popped across his forehead and bags had formed under his eyes, while his mouth twitched in a face redder than a tomato and his hair splayed in a wheat-colored circle of anger. Everyone jumped when he roared, "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!?"

The celestial mage dragged herself away on the floor, elbows unconsciously moving as her eyes fixed in terror on the officer seething above her.

"There are forces at play you do not understand, idiot girl!" the Captain thundered, arms tensed at his sides as his face shifted from red to purple. Lucy was halfway certain he was about to break something. "We do not know what came out of that mountain with him, that has been festering for the past eight hours!" He jabbed a red, blistered finger at the tied-up ALAA. "That cult might have succeeded!"

He clenched his fists and his teeth, shaking in anger and swaying slightly as his heavy breathing slowed down. Without another word, he closed his eyes and stormed past Lucy, stumbled all the way to a hatch in the deck, and clambered down to the ballast chamber.

He slammed it shut, and a silence settled over the lower deck, broken only by the creaking of the _Mary Sue_ 's wooden hull.

All eyes drifted from the trapdoor, to Lucy, and then to the fire Dragon Slayer.

With the blinding light gone, Lucy could see Natsu clearly. He shifted in his sleep, digging a more comfortable spot out of the mattress. His arm was no longer a mess of burned red, blistered white, and charred black. Skin was removed to reveal barren muscle and tendons, while his hand looked… almost normal, an image thrown off by the tendons visible in his wrist.

Perhaps just as shocked and disoriented as the rest of her, Lucy's stomach did not protest.

Upon closer inspection, with her fingers censoring the worst of it, his shoulder did not appear burned any longer. Gone were the bubbles, soot, and hardened char that had comprised his third-degree burns, replaced with a line as black as night that thinned slightly as it curved up around his deltoid muscles in an incomplete circle. Within the 80% circle were three thick pitch-black swipes, all separated from each other by a thin border of untouched skin.

It looked more like body paint, or even a tattoo, than a burn.

Unsure of what just happened, the celestial mage walked over to the stairs and sat down on the bottom step for a long, hard, nauseated think.

* * *

"Captain! They're back!"

The shout brought the scarred man out of the ballast chamber and up the stairs, right on Lucy's heels to the upper deck. The bright sunlight after being belowdecks forced them both to squint while their eyes adjusted. Amidships on the port side, the three swimmers were being hauled aboard. First aboard was Gerald, followed by the Sergeant and Tyler. The officer marched their way, stumbling once on the slowly shifting deck.

"Where are we?" Captain Klossner demanded as the three drenched men worked their shirts on over their heads.

Sergeant Hammond spat his shirt out of his mouth before answering. "We're at one of the abandoned towns on Fiore's southwest coast. Hargeon should be that way," he said, spinning his left wrist to point starboard, as his arms were still tangled in his uncooperative shirt.

"At least we know which way to go," the scarred man sighed and then walked belowdecks.

"The controls are up…" Lucy began, trailing off as the captain emerged from below with paddles in his arms.

"Everyone take a paddle. The logs have moved, and we will damage something if we use the engines," the Captain ordered, handing out the wooden paddles to everyone on deck.

Sergeant Hammond, with his shirt finally on, was the first to take a paddle. He headed towards the starboard side, calling back, "Lucy, Stephanie, and John, you're with me." Upon receiving their paddles, one of the women who had helped bind the ALAA and a young man covered in mechanical grease stains followed Lucy to starboard after the sergeant.

"Jeremy, come with me to the stern," Captain Klossner ordered former Spear Guard. "The rest of you, go to port."

Moving a 35-foot boat backwards was not an easy task. It felt like trying to paddle through concrete. Groans echoed from the rowers as they strained with every stroke. After five minutes, Lucy's arms ached for all they were worth, and it seemed they had made very little, if any, progress through the sea of logs.

"This is hard," Lucy panted, leaning against the gunwale for a break. "I'm a writer, not a rower."

"You can't take a break yet," Johnathan panted, his grease-stained hands shoving his paddle into the water. His arms and his face tensed as, slowly, ever so slowly, the starboard rowers forced the _Mary Sue_ into reverse.

Lucy steeled her resolve before sticking her paddle into the water again and slowly rowing, straining all the way.

On and on it went, for hours it seemed. Every now-and-then someone came up from belowdecks with a paddle or swapped places with a rower.

By the time Jeremy the Spear Guard declared, "We're clear," the sun was nearly set and every muscle in Lucy's upper body felt like it was on fire. Her hands were raw, and several blisters had formed on them. Lucky they hadn't burst, but there was just no right way to do this, no right way to hold these stupid paddles in this stupid boat to go a stupid direction. She ached all over as she rose, and a feeling of weakness flooded her as she handed in her paddle.

"Good work, everyone," Captain Klossner panted to the fourteen or so people flopped out on the deck. He spun on his heel towards the pilothouse but overbalanced and joined the rowers on the deck with a thud.

* * *

Lucy was still dead tired as the Mary Sue cruised through the night. The mage was seated on deck, gazing out over the port side towards the leveled coastline of Fiore.

The deck creaked beside her, and Lucy turned to see the Captain sitting down with a lantern in his hand.

"I thought you'd be asleep by now," she droned, eyes fluttering with sleepless fatigue.

"I could not," the man replied. "There has been something weighing on my mind."

Lucy sighed, preparing to begin speaking, but quickly bit her tongue when Lukas started.

"I came here to apologize for the way I handled the situation with the fire mage. I dismissed your concerns and treated you too harshly, and for that I am sorry."

Lucy couldn't help but stare, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, before a tired laugh escaped her. "I was about to apologize for that. Natsu needed a healer."

The scarred man smiled a wan smile. "He still does, but rest is what he can get now." He rose to his feet slowly, before offering a bandaged hand to the celestial mage. "It is time you slept as well. I think we can find you a hammock below."

Lucy seized his hand and yelped in pain as he grimaced and hauled her to her feet by a blistered hand. She drew back as soon as he released her and inspected the aggravated blisters from paddling.

"I can heal that," the soldier offered.

Lucy shied away a little. "I think I'll pass."

"It will be nowhere near as—" He paused, searching for the word. "—intense, as what I did to Natsu. It will burn, and then it will fade."

Cautiously, and with a healthy amount of skepticism written across her face, Lucy offered her hands.

The man murmured " _Lux Sanidadem_ ," and a small ball of golden light appeared between his hands. He pulled his hands apart, and the ball stretched out into a column of translucent gold in his grasp.

Lucy tentatively inserted her hands into the cylinder of light. Soothing warmth washed through them and up her arms, like a favorite blanket, that got steadily warmer. Within seconds, it felt as though her hands were inside a campfire that burned and crackled around them, roasting her fingers like marshmallows.

The celestial mage drew her hands back with another yelp. They still felt like they were burning, so she ran towards the nearest edge of the boat.

Lucy shoved her hands towards the sea below, but two large, bandaged hands clamped onto her shoulders and pulled her away. "The seawater will only make it worse."

Lucy watched her hands. Her blisters yellowed and shrank before her eyes; they formed rough callouses that testified to the work she had done that day. Not until the last mound of raised skin was reduced to a rough patch of yellow, which felt like an eternity but was perhaps only a few seconds, did the burning sensation begin to fade.

"It is time for you to sleep," the blonde man stated. " _Sopor_."

Lucy's hands fell to her sides as her vision blurred and her eyes drifted shut.

* * *

 **A/N: So, what'd you think? Love it? Loathe it? Review and let me know!**

 **Today, I have no further ado, as none of you have asked me any questions, so I give you the Fall 2019 TurboPack!**

 **Yours Truly, TurboWolf**

 **The mange-ridden, but still respectable, Beta: Ikrani**

 **Puck100,**

 **Moshiyari, midnightscar17,**

 **EazyFade, DaedricSlayer1337, EarthDragonArnighte, darkexplosionz, Sishen123,**

 **LCO3, Immortal ninjaaa,**

 **xPug99x, whynot3993, REiNozomi**


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